Apparatus and method for automated and assisted patent claim mapping and expense planning

ABSTRACT

An apparatus and computer implemented method that include obtaining, into a computer, text of a patent, automatically finding and extracting, using the computer, a set of claim text from the patent text, identifying, using the computer, text of independent claims from the set of claim text, displaying in a first row on a computer monitor the text of the independent claims, automatically determining a plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases from the text of the independent claims, displaying in a second row on the computer monitor the text of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases, eliciting and receiving user input to specify a first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases, and highlighting each occurrence of the specified first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases in a plurality of the independent claims displayed in the first row. A scope concept builder tool is also provided.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This patent application claims the benefit of priority, under 35 U.S.C.§119(e), to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/482,596,filed on May 4, 2011, which is incorporated herein by reference in itsentirety.

This application also claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C.119(e) of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/542,515 filedOct. 3, 2011, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entiretyand made a part hereof.

This application also claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) of U.S.Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/561,502 filed Nov. 18, 2011,which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety and made apart hereof.

This application is also related to:

-   PCT Patent Application PCT/US2006/020950 (published as WO    2006/128183A2) filed May 30, 2006 by Lundberg et al. titled “Method    and Apparatus for Cross-Referencing Important IP Relationships”;-   PCT Patent Application PCT/US2005/026768 (published as WO    2006/015110) filed Jul. 27, 2005 by Lundberg et al. titled “Patent    Mapping”;-   U.S. Patent Publication US 2007/0198578 filed Jul. 27, 2006 by    Lundberg et al. titled “Patent Mapping”;-   U.S. Patent Publication US 2008/0216013 filed Aug. 1, 2007 by    Lundberg et al. titled “Patent Tracking”; and-   U.S. Patent Publication US 2010/0131513 filed Oct. 23, 2009 by    Lundberg et al. titled “Patent Mapping”; which are all incorporated    by reference in their entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Example embodiments relate to the field of automated patent analysis,and more specifically to a method and apparatus for automaticallydelimiting and extracting claim text from a file containing the patent,automatically identifying phrases that are common to two or more claimsand separately displaying the identified common phases on a displayscreen along with the claim text, eliciting and receiving user input tofurther classify at least portions of the identified common phases asconcepts of the claims, and generating a concept map of the concepts.The present disclosure optionally also includes generating acomputer-readable claim-concept data object that contains datarepresenting the user-classified concepts and the concept map of theclaims, an identification of the patent, and optionally including datarepresenting at least one annuity or maintenance-fee-payment currencyamount and due date, and/or data representing an identification of atleast one related patent.

BACKGROUND

United States Patent Publication US 2010/0131513 by Lundberg et al.,published May 27, 2010 and titled “Patent Mapping,” is incorporatedherein by reference. Lundberg et al. describe a system and method thatpermit patent mapping. Their method may include maintaining a databaseof patent portfolios and a database of patents with each patent storedin the database of patents associated with one or more patent portfoliosstored in the database of patent portfolios. A search query may bereceived associated with a first patent portfolio and the firstportfolio may be searched as a function of the search query. Searchresults may be generated that include one or more patent claimsassociated with the search query. The one or more patent claims may bemapped to a patent concept. They also describe a computer-implementedmethod that includes maintaining a database of patent portfolios and adatabase of patents, each patent stored in the database of patentsassociated with one or more patent portfolios stored in the database ofpatent portfolios; receiving a search query associated with a firstpatent portfolio; searching the first portfolio as a function of thesearch query; generating search results, the search results includingone or more patent claims associated with the search query; and mappingthe one or more patent claims to a patent concept.

United States Patent Publication US 2006/0036451 was filed Aug. 10, 2004by Lundberg et al., published Feb. 16, 2006 titled “Patent mapping” andis incorporated herein by reference. In this application, Lundberg etal. describe systems, methods, software, and data structures for patentmapping, storage, and searching. Some such embodiments include mappingpatent documents, claims, and claim limitations. Some furtherembodiments provide for searching a universe of patent documents bypatent document, claim, limitation, class, element, or concept.

United States Patent Publication US 2006/0026174 was filed Jul. 27, 2004by Lundberg et al. published Feb. 2, 2006 titled “Patent mapping” and isincorporated herein by reference. In this application, Lundberg et al.describe systems, methods, software, and data structures for patentmapping, storage, and searching. Some such embodiments include mappingpatent documents, claims, and claim limitations. Some furtherembodiments provide for searching a universe of patent documents bypatent document, claim, limitation, class, or element.

United States Patent Publication US 2008/0216013 was filed Aug. 1, 2007by Lundberg et al. published Sep. 4, 2008 titled “Patent tracking” andis incorporated herein by reference. In this application, Lundberg etal. describe systems and methods for patent and claim trackingEmbodiments include tracking changes in claims through amendments, anddisplaying the claims in a marked-up format for viewing the changes.Other embodiments include recording and displaying references that mayhave been cited against a patent application and its claims. Otherembodiments are described and claimed.

United States Patent Publication US 2003/0033295 filed Jul. 11, 2002 byAdler et al. published Feb. 13, 2003 titled “Method for analyzing andrecording innovations” and is incorporated herein by reference. In thisapplication, Adler et al. describe a data processing system having aninterface, a query builder connected to the interface for receiving thefactual information and for building a search query describing theinnovation, a search engine connected to the interface and to the querybuilder, for selecting a database and accessing this database via atransmission network and for searching the query in the database, arelevancy filter for filtering the search result provided by the searchengine, means for comparing the search query with the filtered prior artoutput by the relevancy filter and a statutory analyzer for analyzingthe comparison to form a computer-implemented electronic records systemand a data processing system for automatically maintaining an electroniclaboratory records system and a corresponding method, and to a computerprogram product directly loadable into the internal memory of acomputing apparatus or network.

United States Patent Publication US 2010/0063923 was filed Nov. 30, 2009by Lundberg et al., published Mar. 11, 2010 titled “SYSTEM AND METHODFOR ANNUITY PROCESSING,” and was a national-stage entry from PCTApplication PCT/US07/08822 filed Apr. 10, 2007, each of which isincorporated herein by reference. In United States Patent Publication US2010/0063923, Lundberg et al. describe a system, apparatus, and methodfor annuity processing. In some embodiments, an annuity processingmodule is used in conjunction with an internet-based patent- andtrademark-application management system. This annuity-processing modulereflects a software implementation of various business rules or methodsassociated with paying the annuity due on a patent. These rules are, insome embodiments, derived from various laws relating to the payment ofannuities. In some embodiments, these rules are provided to a workflowengine via a DTD or XML schema. The workflow engine manages theexecution of the various business rules and states associated with thisexecution. These rules, including the decision to make a payment, can bemanually executed or automatically executed by a member of anorganization implementing the annuity payment module as a part of alarger system. This larger application could, in some embodiments, be aninternet-based patent- and trademark-application management system.

U.S. Provisional Patent Application 60/685,759 filed May 27, 2005 andPCT Patent Application PCT/US06/20950 (published as WO2006/128183A2)filed May 30, 2006 by Lundberg titled “Method and Apparatus forCross-Referencing Important IP Relationships” are all incorporatedherein by reference. In these applications Lundberg describes a systemand method to provide cross-referencing of important IP relationships.The system includes software executing on a computing platform fordisplaying relationships between various domains of IP informationselected from the group of claims, prosecution history, products,concepts or art.

U.S. Pat. No. 5,963,205 to Sotomayor issued Oct. 5, 1999 titled“Automatic index creation for a word processor”, and is incorporatedherein by reference. Sotomayor described a method and apparatus toenable scanning one or more documents, from within a word-processorprogram, wherein his disclosure automatically identifies key topics andphrases in a document's text. He also describes inserting identifyingtokens for the index-generation program in the word-processor togenerate an index to those key topics. One embodiment provides anapparatus and method for automatically identifying semanticallyimportant key topics within an integrated word-processor environment. Adocument is scanned from within a word-processor program, automaticallyidentifies significant key topics in the document, and creates andinserts index tokens for these key topics. One embodiment includes aprocess running in a word-processor program on a computer which (a)allows an author to select index generation for a document beingprocessed (edited) and then, using a semantic analyzer program runningon a computer, (b) automatically identifies significant key topicswithin the document, (c) generates and embeds index tokens into the textof the document.

What is needed is an improved method and system for automated andassisted patent-claim mapping and expense planning.

SUMMARY

The present disclosure provides an apparatus and computer-implementedmethod that includes obtaining, into a computer, text of a patent,automatically finding and extracting, using the computer, a set of claimtext from the patent text, identifying, using the computer, text ofindependent claims from the set of claim text, displaying in a first rowon a computer monitor the text of the independent claims, automaticallydetermining a plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases from thetext of the independent claims, displaying in a second row on thecomputer monitor the text of the plurality of preliminary scope-conceptphrases, eliciting and receiving user input to specify a first one ofthe plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases, and highlightingeach occurrence of the specified first one of the plurality ofpreliminary scope-concept phrases in a plurality (e.g., in someembodiments, all) of the independent claims displayed in the first row.

The present disclosure also provides an apparatus comprising a computer;a storage unit operatively coupled to the computer; a module comprisingone or more processors to obtain, into the storage unit, text of a firstpatent; find and identify, using the computer, claim text from the textof the first patent; automatically identify, using the computer, one ormore keywords contained in the claim text of the first patent; displayon a computer monitor the automatically identified keywords.

The present disclosure also provides a non-transitory computer-readablemedium having instructions stored thereon that when executed on asuitably programmed computer cause the computer to perform a methodcomprising obtaining, into the computer, text of a first patent; findingand identifying, using the computer, claim text from the text of thefirst patent; automatically identifying, using the computer, one or morekeywords contained in the claim text of the first patent; and displayingon a computer monitor the automatically identified keywords.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a flow chart of a process 100 of one embodiment of thepresent disclosure having a claim-text extraction and claim-scopeanalysis assist functionality.

FIG. 1B is a diagram of a computer readable data structure 180 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure having a claim-text extraction andclaim-scope analysis assist functionality.

FIG. 1C is a flow chart of a process 130 of one embodiment of thepresent disclosure having a claim-text extraction and claim-scopeanalysis assist functionality.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a process 200 of one embodiment of the presentdisclosure having a claim-text extraction and claim-scope analysisassist functionality.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart of a process 300 of one embodiment of the presentdisclosure having a claim-text extraction, claim-scope analysis assist,and fee scheduling functionality.

FIG. 4A is a flow chart of a process 401 of one embodiment of thepresent disclosure having a claim-text extraction and claim-scopeanalysis assist functionality.

FIG. 4B is a flow chart of a process 402 of one embodiment of thepresent disclosure having a claim-text extraction and claim-scopeanalysis assist functionality.

FIG. 4C is a flow chart of a process 403 of one embodiment of thepresent disclosure having a claim-text extraction and claim-scopeanalysis assist functionality.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of a process 500 of one embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of a process 600 of one embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 7 is a depiction of one embodiment of a coverage-proportion map 700of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8A is an example of a user interface display 801 of one embodimentof the present disclosure.

FIG. 8B is an example of a user interface display 802 of one embodimentof the present disclosure.

FIG. 8C is an example of a user interface display 803 of one embodimentof the present disclosure.

FIG. 9A is an example of a first portion 901A of a user interfacedisplay of one embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9B is an example of a second portion 901B of a user interfacedisplay of one embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9C is an example of a third portion 901C of a user interfacedisplay of one embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart of a process 1000 of claim identification in oneembodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11A is a flow chart of a process 1100 of scope conceptidentification in one embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11B is a flow chart of a process 1150 of scope conceptidentification in one embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11C is a flow chart of a process 1150 of scope conceptidentification in one embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 12 is an example of a final claim map 1200 with fee schedule.

FIG. 13 is a diagram of a data structure 1300 in one embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 14 is a flow chart of a process 1400 of one embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 15 is a flow chart of a process 1500 of one embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIGS. 16-21 show examples of user interface displays according toexample embodiments.

FIG. 22 is a flow chart of a method according to example embodiments.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

In the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments,reference is made to the accompanying drawings that form a part hereof,and in which are shown by way of illustration specific embodiments inwhich example embodiments may be practiced. It is understood that otherembodiments may be utilized and structural changes may be made withoutdeparting from the scope of the present disclosure.

The leading digit(s) of reference numbers appearing in the Figuresgenerally corresponds to the Figure number in which that component isfirst introduced, such that the same reference number is used throughoutto refer to an identical component which appears in multiple Figures.Signals and connections may be referred to by the same reference numberor label, and the actual meaning will be clear from its use in thecontext of the description.

FIG. 1A is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 100 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure having a claim-text extraction andclaim-scope analysis assist functionality. In some embodiments, process100 includes eliciting and receiving 110 indicia from a user thatspecifies a patent (in some embodiments, this will be an issued patentthat is specified by a patent number, title text, inventor(s) or thelike, while in other embodiments, this will be a pending patentapplication similarly specified), obtaining 111 some or all text of thespecified patent document (e.g., via downloading the text of the patentfrom a patent office website or the like), and loading 112 claim textextracted from the text of the patent document (e.g., identifying theclaim text of the patent using tags in the text, or the like). In someembodiments, a first selected subset of the claims are analyzed (forexample, in some embodiments, only the independent claims of the patentare used for the claim text to be operated on by the rest of process100, and the dependent claims are ignored). In some embodiments, process100 further includes performing a phrase analysis 114 of the claim textto locate relevant phrases (e.g., in some embodiments, this analyzingincludes locating “phrases” that are present in two or more of theclaims; in some embodiments, the “phrases” are strings ofcontiguous-sequential, contiguous, adjacent, sequential, or near-by text(e.g.,

contiguous-sequential phrases include strings of two contiguous words,strings of three contiguous words, strings of four contiguous words, orstrings of five or more contiguous words, in each case have the samesequential order and have no intervening words;

contiguous phrases include strings of two contiguous words, strings ofthree contiguous words, strings of four contiguous words, or strings offive or more contiguous words, but may have different sequential ordersand have no intervening words (e.g., “pointed hot projection” would beequivalent to “hot pointed projection” but not equivalent to “hot verypointed projection”;

for adjacent or near-by strings, the selected words may be in differentorders unless the user specifies that the order is to be considered byspecifying “sequential” as well,

adjacent phrases include a plurality of adjacent words that, in someembodiments, ignore certain “trivial” words, e.g., article-type wordssuch as “a”, “the”, “said”, and the like, but in this case, the adjacentwords need not be in the identical sequential order in each phrase),

near-by phrases are strings of words (in some embodiments, one or morenon-trivial words (as well as article-type words such as “a”, “the”,“said”, and the like) are ignored as well as ignoring one or more wordsthat are not in a set of pre-determined words, but in this case again,the near-by words need not be in the identical order in each phrase andwould consist of N words within a slightly larger group of M words(e.g., a group of 4 words (N=4) within a group of 7 words (M=7))). Ineach of the above cases, a simple word-by-word analysis is done of eachclaim to be mapped. In other embodiments, a semantic analysis isperformed to find equivalent noun clauses, verb clauses, adjectiveclauses, adverb clauses and the like that are in two or more claims). Asused herein, words are considered “adjacent” even if there are certain“trivial” intervening words, such as articles “a”, “the”, “said”, andthe like, identifiers such as “first”, “second” and the like, and insome cases other modifiers such as “upper”, “lower”, “larger”, “smaller”and the like. As used herein, a sequence of words are considered“contiguous” only if there are no intervening words, in contrast tobeing “adjacent” even if there are “trivial” intervening words. In someembodiments, the selection of which words may be ignored as “trivial” isinitially specified as a default set such as {“a”, “the”, “said”,“first”, “second” and the like}, and this set can be selectivelyexpanded or contracted as desired by the user to a set of activated“trivial” words that is used in the subsequent analysis of one or moresets of claims. In some embodiments, the activated set of “trivial”words that is used can be modified during one session of the claimmapping process, and/or on a claim-by-claim basis.

In some embodiments, the phrase analysis process parses each claim inthe first selected subset of claims to locate word boundaries (the wordsare separated by separators such as spaces, punctuation, linefeeds andthe like, which separators are then ignored). In some embodiments,various other words that are ubiquitous or very common in claims (suchas “method”, “process”, “apparatus”, “device”, and the like) are alsoignored. For the remaining words, analysis 114 selects successive pairsof claims; and for each pair of claims, selects a first (N^(th)) word inthe first claim and determines whether that word is in the second claim(which, if it is in the second claim is designated the M^(th) word inthe second claim); then the N^(th)+1 word of the first claim is comparedto the M^(th)+1 word of the second claim; if so, then the N^(th)+2 wordof the first claim is compared to the M^(th)+2 word of the second claim;if so, this process continues in this manner until the end of the claimor the end of the matching string. This results in a string of words(herein called an automatically generated preliminary scope concept(AGPSC) phrase) that exists identically in both of this pair of claims(it is the string from the N^(th) to the N^(th)+n words of the firstclaim and the string from the M^(th) to the M^(th)+n words of the secondclaim).

The process 100 then continues by generating 116 an automaticallygenerated preliminary scope concept (AGPSC) phrase list, by adding eachadditional AGPSC phrase found to the list of AGPSC phrases.

The process 100 then continues by searching 118 the claims to identifyand delimit the same or similar phases in each of a plurality of claimsof the specified patent. Note that in some embodiments, the functions114, 116, 118 and/or 120 are intermingled with one another as a function115, since once the claim loading and selection function creates thefirst subset of claims and places those claims in the claim substructure181 of data structure 180, the pair-wise phrase analysis of function 114results in phrases that are accumulated in the phrase list substructure182 by phrase list function 118, and function 118 is merely tracking thelocations (in locations substructure 183, which in some embodiments,optionally also tracks the length in each claim, since the user maychange the number of words to highlight by editing or adding equivalentphrases) of each phrase in the phrase list of function 116 in each claimas determined by function 114. In some embodiments, the highlightingfunction 120 also stores an indication (in highlighting substructure184) of whether or not to highlight (and optionally what color orpattern to use when highlighting) each given phrase in the list 182.Thus, a first n-word phrase “A” may be stored in list substructure 182,the locations may by stored in locations substructure 183 (e.g., phrase“A” starting at word N of claim 1, starting at word M in claim 12,starting at word P in claim 15; phrase “B” starting at word X of claim1, starting at word Y in claim 12, starting at word Z in claim 15), andwhether or not to highlight and which highlighting to use may by storedin highlighting substructure 184. If equivalent scope concept strings ofdifferent lengths are designated (either by user analysis, or automaticsemantic analysis), the length (e.g., number of characters or number ofwords or the like) of each phrase may also be stored (e.g., in someembodiments, in the locations substructure 183 or the highlightingsubstructure 184).

In some embodiments, process 100 then continues by highlighting 120 eachof the automatically generated preliminary scope concept (AGPSC) phrases(e.g., using colors to distinguish and draw attention to each of aplurality of phrases—for example, highlighting a first phrase in lightyellow in each of its occurrences in a plurality of claims, highlightinga second phrase in light green in each of its occurrences in a pluralityof claims, highlighting a third phrase in light tan in each of itsoccurrences in a plurality of claims, and so on). In other embodiments,highlighting can be accomplished using different cross-hatching, boldingor italicizing text, different fonts, blinking or the like. In someembodiments, a display of phrases (e.g., a plurality of phrases listedone after another in a first column of the display) along with a displayof the entire claim text (e.g., a plurality of claims listed one afteranother in a second column of the display).

In some embodiments, as the user moves the mouse pointer over any one ofthe plurality of phrases (or tabs the display cursor, or otherwiseindicates an interest in one of the listed phrases), that user-indicatedphase (e.g., the “moused-over” phrase that is selected by the usermoving a pointer on a computer monitor using a mouse-type input device)is highlighted (e.g., in some embodiments, the user-indicated phrase areshown as bold black text on a light-color-tinted background) in everyone of the claims in which it occurs, while a plurality (e.g., in someembodiments, all) of the other phrases in the claims are not highlighted(e.g., in some embodiments, the other phrases are shown as not-boldblack text on a white background, or grey text on a white backgroundwhere the selected phrase is in black text on a white background). Insome embodiments, the user selects a collection of two or more phrases(e.g., by holding the “control” key while clicking on all of the desiredphrases) and the computer-implemented process (e.g., a computer program)will highlight each phrase in the collection of phrases (e.g., in someembodiments, a plurality of modes of phrase-collection highlighting areprovided: a first mode in which only those claims having all of thecollection of phrases are highlighted (e.g., each phrase shown with adifferent background color, or all of the phrases shown in the samecolor), a second mode in which a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments,all) of the claims having any one of the phrases are highlighted (e.g.,each claim having all the phrases would have each phrase shown with adifferent vivid, saturated or dark background color, or all of thephrases shown in the same vivid, saturated or dark color, while theother claims having only a subset of the selected collection of phraseswould have those phrases highlighted in a pastel or light version of therespective color(s)), a third mode in which the user selects one subsetof phrases or words as synonymous or equivalent (e.g., the user maydecide to select “transistor”, “electronic switch”, “FET”, and “gate” asall being synonyms of, or equivalent to, each other and thus all areconsidered to be the same first concept) while selecting other subsetsof phrases or words as synonymous with one or more other concepts (e.g.,the user may decide to select “CMOS”, complementary transistors, and“N-channel and P-channel” as all being synonyms of, or equivalent to,the same second concept), such that the complex relationship of thesynonymous-concept combination is highlighted (e.g., each claim having aplurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) of the first-concept phrasesand second-concept phrases (in some embodiments, any number ofsynonymous-concepts can be specified) would have each synonymous-conceptphrase shown with a different vivid, saturated or dark background color,or all of the phrases shown in the same vivid, saturated or dark color,while the other claims having only a subset of the selected collectionof synonymous-concept phrases would have those phrases highlighted in apastel or light version of the respective color(s)).

In some embodiments, process 100 optionally presents 122 a raw claim map(e.g., a matrix of rows, each presenting a different automaticallygenerated preliminary scope concept (AGPSC) phrase, and columns, eachpresenting a different claim (in some embodiments, only the independentclaims are indicated, and each of the independent claims is representedby one column), wherein each cell at the intersection of an AGPSC rowwith a claim column of a claim containing that AGPSC is highlighted, andeach cell at the intersection of a AGPSC row with a claim column of aclaim not containing that AGPSC is not highlighted).

In some embodiments, process 100 elicits and receives 124 user input,wherein the user can indicate to the system scope concept (SC) derivedfrom one or more AGPSCs. For example, the system will often extractseveral slightly different forms of a limitation with different wordingsbut with the same or substantially similar meanings, wherein the usercan indicate to the system that two or more AGPSCs are the same SC. Insome embodiments, the system indicates a distinction (e.g., a displayedindication that is different) between a plurality of claims havingphrases that are word-for-word identical and another plurality of claimshaving phrases that are indicated by the user as being the same scopeconcept but not word-for-word identical. In some embodiments, process100 optionally presents 126 an improved claim map (e.g., as describedabove, a matrix of rows, each presenting a different scope concept (SC)phrase, and columns, each presenting a different claim, wherein eachcell at the intersection of an SC row with a claim column of a claimcontaining that SC is highlighted, and each cell at the intersection ofan SC row with a claim column of a claim not containing that SC is nothighlighted).

FIG. 1B is a diagram of a computer readable data structure 180. In someembodiments, data structure 180 described above for FIG. 1A includesadditional data substructures. In some embodiments, the process 100further include process 100 includes eliciting and receiving indiciafrom a user that specifies a second patent (in some embodiments, thiswill be an issued patent that is specified by a patent number, titletext, inventor(s) or the like, while in other embodiments, this will bea pending patent application similarly specified). Applying process 100to the second patent results in a second set of claims which are placedin the second claim substructure 171 of data structures 180. Theremainder of process 100 is then carried out on this second set ofclaims. In some embodiments, data structure 180 includes a thesaurus 172data substructure, which is used to generate a plurality of additionalkey phrases and AGPSCs that include different words but that havesubstantially the same meanings as phrases in the initial list. In someembodiments, data structure 180 includes annuity and maintenance-feeschedule(s) for the patent(s) being analyzed in data substructure 173,which is used to generate a schedule of payments due for the patent(s)being analyzed. In some embodiments, data structure 180 includes a setof user generated scope concepts in data substructure 176, the scopeconcepts being elicited and received from a user 99 interacting with thesystem through a human-computer interface 89 (e.g., a personal computer,a computer terminal, a smart phone, a tablet computer, or other suchdevices).

In some embodiments, data structure 180 includes an AGPSC qualitymeasure 185 data substructure, which contains for each of the pluralityof AGPSCs a measure of the quality or potential importance of thatAGPSC. In different embodiments, a variety of different quality measuresare used, including but not limited to: length (number of words) of theAGPSC, number of claims containing the AGPSC, and the number of patents(of the patents being analyzed) containing the AGPSC. In someembodiments, data structure 180 includes a user-specified scope conceptquality measure 177 data substructure which contains, for each of theplurality of user-specified scope concepts in 176, a measure of thequality or potential importance of that user-specified scope concept.

In some embodiments, data structure 180 includes a claim mappingcoverage 174 data substructure. The process for generating the claimmapping coverage is shown in FIG. 6 and is described below. In someembodiments, data structure 180 includes a claim map 175 datasubstructure. The process for generating the claim map is shown in FIG.2 and is described below. In some embodiments, some or all of theinformation contained in the plurality of data substructures in computerreadable data structure 180 is presented to decision maker(s) 90 via ahuman-computer interface 80 (e.g., a personal computer, a computerterminal, a smart phone, a tablet computer, or other such devices). Insome embodiments, the information includes claim scope and themaintenance/annuity fees and dates they are due. Such claim-scopeinformation provides an easier-to-use way to present a high-leveloverview of a patent portfolio that presents the concepts that definethe scope of the patents in a manner that allows prioritization anddecisions as to which patents are important for litigation ormaintenance-fee payments or like purposes.

FIG. 1C is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 130 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure having a claim-text extraction andclaim-scope analysis assist functionality. Process 130 identifies AGPSCsin some embodiments. A first word in a first claim is selected 131. Apotential new AGPSC is set to empty 132. A first word in a second claimis selected 132. The selected word from the first claim is compared tothe selected word from second claim 134. If the selected words are notthe same, a check is made to determine if there are more words in thesecond claim 135. If not, the process starts over with the next word inthe first claim 131. If there are more words in the second claim, thenext word in the second claim is selected 136, and the comparison of theselected words from the first claim and the second claim is repeated134. If the comparison 134 determines that the selected word from thefirst claim is the same as the selected word from the second claim, thatword is added to the new AGPSC 137. The next words in the first claimand the second claim are then selected 138, and compared 139. If theselected word from the first claim is the same as the selected word fromthe second claim, that word is added to the new AGPSC 137. If thecomparison 139 determines that the selected words are not the same, anew AGPSC has been identified and is output 140. A check is made todetermine if there are more words in the first claim 141. If there aremore words in the first claim, the process repeats at 131. If there areno more words in the first claim, the process is complete 142.

FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 200 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure having a claim-text extraction andclaim-scope analysis assist functionality. In some embodiments, exceptas follows, process 200 is similar to process 100 described above, andincludes one or more subprocesses described above for FIG. 1 but notshown here for clarity of this discussion. In some embodiments, process200 includes eliciting and receiving 210 indicia from a user thatspecifies one or more patents (in some embodiments, these will be issuedpatents that are specified by patent numbers, text of titles,inventor(s) or the like), and loading 212 claim text extracted from thetext of the patent document(s). In other embodiments, process 200includes eliciting and receiving 210 indicia from a user that specifiesa family of related patents is to be analyzed, and loading 212 claimtext extracted from the text of the patent document(s) of all member(s)of the family of related patents. In some embodiments, the indicia froma user include specific patent family members to include or exclude(e.g., include only continuation applications). In some embodiments,process 200 further includes semantically analyzing 214 the claim textto identify relevant phrases, generating 216 an automatically generatedpreliminary scope concept (AGPSC) phrase list, searching 218 the claimtext to identify and delimit the same or similar phases in each of aplurality of claims of the specified patent(s). In some embodiments, adisplay of phrases (e.g., a plurality of phrases listed one afteranother in a first column of the display) along with a display of theentire claim text (e.g., a plurality of claims listed one after anotherin a second column of the display) is presented to the user on acomputer monitor (e.g., an LCD display, a projector, a screen, aportable electronic device etc). In some embodiments, process 200further elicits and receives 224 user input, wherein the user canindicate to the system a scope concept (SC) derived from one or moreAGPSCs. In some embodiments, process 200 presents 222 an improved claimmap (e.g., as described above, a matrix of rows, each presenting adifferent scope concept (SC) phrase, and columns, each presenting adifferent claim, wherein each cell at the intersection of an SC row witha claim column of a claim containing that SC is highlighted, and eachcell at the intersection of an SC row with a claim column of a claim notcontaining that SC is not highlighted). In some embodiments, a separate“card” 226 is produced (either a virtual card that can be electronicallydisplayed on a computer monitor (e.g., a LCD display or a projector), ora real physical card (printed on card stock (such as, e.g., Avery 28878Clean Edge® business card stock available from Avery Dennison OfficeProducts, Brea Calif.; or the like) for ease of handling andpresentation to a group of decision makers, or even printed on regularpaper). In some embodiments, the map format of FIG. 12 (describedfurther below) is used to show claim scope and the maintenance/annuityfees and dates they are due, all printed on cards (with one or morepatents per card). Such claim-scope cards provide an easier-to-use wayto present a high-level overview of a patent portfolio that presents theconcepts that define the scope of the patents in a manner that allowsprioritization and decisions as to which patents are important forlitigation or maintenance-fee payments or like purposes.

FIG. 3 is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 300 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure having a claim-text extraction,claim-scope analysis assist, and fee scheduling functionality. In someembodiments, except as follows, process 300 is similar to process 200described above, and includes one or more subprocesses described abovefor FIG. 2 but not shown here for clarity of this discussion. Process300 includes loading 212 claim text for one or more patents. In someembodiments, process 300 further includes semantically analyzing 214 theclaim text to identify relevant phrases, generating 312 a phrase list,wherein the phrase list includes automatically generated preliminaryscope concepts (AGPSCs), and in other embodiments, the phrase listfurther includes key phrases that will assist a user in identifyingscope concepts. In some embodiments, process 300 further includesgenerating 316 a list of one or more scope concepts 318. Generating 316scope concepts includes starting with a initial phrase list (generatedat 312) that includes AGPSCs and key phases, generating with the use ofa thesaurus 314 a plurality of additional key phrases and AGPSCs thatinclude different words but that have substantially the same meanings asphrases in the initial list. In some embodiments, process 300 furtherelicits and receives 310 user input, wherein the user can indicate tothe system a scope concept (SC) derived from one or more AGPSCs and keyphrases. In some embodiments, process 300 further includes searching 218the claim text to identify and delimit the same or similar phases ineach of a plurality of claims of the specified patent(s), and presents222 an improved claim map (e.g., as described above, a matrix of rows,each presenting a different scope concept (SC) phrase, and columns, eachpresenting a different claim, wherein each cell at the intersection ofan SC row with a claim column of a claim containing that SC ishighlighted, and each cell at the intersection of an SC row with a claimcolumn of a claim not containing that SC is not highlighted).

In some embodiments, process 300 further includes loading 320 annuityand maintenance-fee schedule(s) for the patent(s) being analyzed,encapsulating 324 the schedule information with the improved claim map,thereby creating an encapsulated patent claim object. In someembodiments, the encapsulated patent claim object includes the scheduleof payments due and the improved claim map for a single patent. In otherembodiments, the encapsulated patent claim object includes the scheduleof payments due and the claim map for a plurality of patents. In someembodiments of the present disclosure, the encapsulated patent claimobject is presented to a user, providing the user a more straightforwardhigh-level overview of a patent portfolio in a manner that allowsprioritization and decisions as to which patents are important forlitigation or maintenance-fee payments or like purposes. In someembodiments, a separate “card” 326 is produced either a virtual cardthat can be electronically displayed on a computer monitor (e.g., a LCDdisplay or a projector), or a real physical card (printed on card stock(such as, e.g., Avery 28878 Clean Edge® business card stock availablefrom Avery Dennison Office Products, Brea Calif.; or the like) for easeof handling and presentation to a group of decision makers, or evenprinted on regular paper.

FIG. 4A is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 401 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure having a claim-text extraction andclaim-scope analysis assist functionality. In some embodiments, exceptas follows, process 401 is similar to processes 100, 200 and 300described above, and includes one or more subprocesses described abovefor FIGS. 1, 2 and 3 but not shown here for clarity of this discussion.Process 401 includes loading 212 claim text for one or more patents. Insome embodiments, process 401 further includes semantically analyzing214 the claim text to identify key phrases, generating a key phrase list412, wherein the key phrase list includes relevant phrases that willassist a user in identifying scope concepts in the claims. Key phrasesare word sequences (sentence fragments) identified in and extracted fromthe claim text that are likely components of a claim limitation. Inother embodiments, the key phrase list can include automaticallygenerated preliminary scope concepts. In some embodiments, process 401further includes key phrase consolidation and enhancement 416 whereinthe process 401 elicits and receives 410 input from a user 99 specifyingmodifications to the process-generated key phrases, wherein such userspecified modification can include but are not limited to editing thetext of a key phrase, combining multiple key phases into a single keyphase, adding a new key phrase to the key phase list, and removing aprocess-generated key phrase from the list.

In some embodiments, the process 401 further includes generating 316 alist of scope concepts 318, wherein scope concept generation includesamalgamating the key phrases, as originally identified and/or in someembodiments, as modified and enhanced by the user, into list a ofautomatically generated preliminary scope concepts (AGPSCs). In someembodiments, scope concept generation includes using one or morethesauri and/or other collections of sets of associated words togenerate additional AGPSCs using terminology that is different butsimilar in meaning to terminology in already created AGPSCs. Forexample, from a first AGPSC including the term “phone”, one or more.additional AGPSCs could be created using the terms “telephone”, “cellphone”, “mobile phone”, and “cellular phone.” Such additional AGPSCswould make it easier for a user to apply very specific scope conceptsfor claim mapping.

In other embodiments, scope concept generation 316 includes using one ormore thesauri and/or other collections of sets of associated words toautomatically combine one or more AGPSCs into a single AGPSC that hassimilar but more general meaning For example, a first AGPSCincorporating the term “helix”, a second AGPSC incorporating the term“monopole”, and a third AGPSC incorporating the term “dipole” could becombined into a single consolidated scope concept incorporating the term“antenna.” The original AGPSC terms, “helix”, “monopole” and “dipole”,along with consolidated term “antenna”, would employed used whensearching claim text for this consolidated scope concept. Suchadditional AGPSCs would make it easier for a user to apply broader scopeconcepts for claim mapping.

In some embodiments, the thesauri 414 used in process 401 can include,but are not limited to, general local-language thesauri (for example,English, German, Spanish or French), technical subject matter specificthesauri (for example, for electronics, chemistry, or horticulture), anduser supplied word association lists. In some embodiments, one or aplurality of thesauri can be used.

In some embodiments, process 401 further includes eliciting andreceiving 310 user input wherein the user can indicate to the systemfinal scope concepts 318, with each scope concept being derived from oneor a plurality of AGPSCs that have been generated by the system. Inother embodiments, the user can include one or a plurality of keyphrases identified by the system and/or enhanced by the user, in thederivation of the final scope concepts 318. Each of the plurality offinal scope concepts has associated with it one or more search phrases,wherein a search phrase is a text string used by the system whensearching claim text for a particular final scope concept. In someembodiments, the search phrase may be identical with the final scopeconcept name. In other embodiments, each search phrase associated with agiven final scope concept will have a substantially similar meaning, butnot use identical wording. In some embodiments, process 401 furtherincludes, searching 218 the claim text to identify and delimit the scopeconcepts in each of the plurality of claims of the specified patent(s).In some embodiments, process 401 includes presenting a claim map 222.

FIG. 4B is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 402 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure having a claim-text extraction andclaim-scope analysis assist functionality. In some embodiments, exceptas follows, process 402 is similar to process 402 described above, andincludes one or more subprocesses described above for FIG. 4A. In someembodiments, process 401 includes key phrase consolidation andenhancement 416 wherein the process 402 elicits and receives 410 inputfrom a user 99 specifying modifications to the process-generated keyphrases, wherein such user specified modification can include but arenot limited to editing the text of a key phrase, combining multiple keyphases into a single key phase, adding a new key phrase to the key phaselist, and removing a process-generated key phrase from the list. In someembodiments, key phrase consolidation and enhancement 416 furtherincludes referencing and possibly incorporating claim text from theplurality of claims of the specified patent(s).

FIG. 4C is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 403 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure having a claim-text extraction andclaim-scope analysis assist functionality. In some embodiments, exceptas follows, process 403 is similar to process 402 described above, andincludes one or more subprocesses described above for FIG. 4B. In someembodiments, process 403 further includes claim searching and evaluation420 wherein claim searching includes searching the claim text toidentify and delimit scope concepts 318 in each of the plurality ofclaims of the specified patent(s). In some embodiments, a display ofscope concepts (e.g., a plurality of scope concepts listed one afteranother in a first column of the display) along with a display of theentire claim text (e.g., the plurality of claims listed one afteranother in a second column of the display) is presented to the user on acomputer monitor (e.g., an LCD display or a projector), wherein thescope concepts 318 are highlighted (e.g., displayed in a different colorof text, or displayed in a different font, or displayed with some othervisual indicator) in the claim text. In some embodiments, process 403further elicits and receives 422 user input, wherein the user canspecify refinements of how the scope concepts are identified in theclaim text, (e.g., adding to what is highlighted in the claim text for aparticular scope concept, or removing some of the highlighting for aparticular scope concept in the claim text). In some embodiments,process 403 presents 222 an improved claim map.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 400 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure having a claim-text extraction andclaim-scope analysis assist functionality. In some embodiments, exceptas follows, process 500 is similar to processes 100, 200 300 and 403described above, and includes one or more subprocesses described abovefor FIGS. 1, 2, 3, and 4C but not shown here for clarity of thisdiscussion. Process 500 includes loading 212 claim text for one or morepatents. Process 500 further includes further includes the generation ofscope concepts 318, which, in some embodiments, is by the methoddescribed above for process 300 in FIG. 3 and in other embodiments is bythe method described above for process 403 in FIG. 4C. In someembodiments, process 500 further includes claim mapping 510, wherein theclaim text 212 is searched for each of the scope concepts 318 toidentify and delimit the scope concepts in each of a plurality of claimsof the specified patent(s). In some embodiments, a display of scopeconcepts (e.g., a plurality of scope concepts listed one after anotherin a first column of the display) along with a display of the entireclaim text (e.g., a plurality of claims listed one after another in asecond column of the display) is presented to the user 99 on a computermonitor 512 (e.g., a LCD display or a projector) wherein the scopeconcepts 318 are highlighted (e.g., displayed in a different color oftext, or displayed in a different font, or displayed with some othervisual indicator) in the claim text. In some embodiments, process 500further elicits and receives user input, wherein the user can indicateto the system changes to be made in how the system identified scopeconcepts in the claim text. In some embodiments, changing theidentification of scope concepts in the claim text can includehighlighting additional text in the claim. In other embodiments,changing the identification of scope concepts in the claim text caninclude highlighting alternative text in the claim. In some embodiments,process 500 presents 222 an improved claim map.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 600 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure. In some embodiments, except asfollows, process 600 is similar to processes 100, 200, 300, 401, 402,403, and 500 described above, and includes one or more subprocessesdescribed above for FIGS. 1-5, but not shown here for clarity of thisdiscussion. In some embodiments, process 600 further includesclaim-map-coverage analysis 610, wherein claim-map-coverage analysisevaluates the amount of non-trivial claim text in each of the pluralityof claims that is mapped to a scope concept. In some embodiments, theinput to the claim-map-coverage analysis includes loaded claim text 212,and scope concepts 318 and claim map 222 generated by any of theprocesses 100, 200, 300, 401, 402, 403 or 500, described above. For eachscope concept, the system searches the claim text for the one or theplurality of search phrases associated with that scope concept, andstores an indication of a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) ofthe claim text that matches any of the search phrases for each scopeconcept. If any of the text in a claim matches any of the search phrasesof a particular scope concept, that claim is said to “map” that scopeconcept. The system further determines, for each claim, theclaim-mapping coverage, wherein the claim-mapping coverage is theportion of all non-trivial claim text in that claim that maps to anyscope concept. As used herein, non-trivial claim text is that text of aclaim that is significant in identifying the limitations of the claim.The system ignores trivial claim text when determining the portion ofclaim text that maps to one or more scope concepts. In some embodiments,trivial claim text includes boiler-plate language (e.g., “a methodcomprising” and “further includes”). In other embodiments, trivial claimtext includes connector words (e.g., “and”, “or”, and “wherein”) and/orarticles (e.g., “a”, “an”, the “the”). In some embodiments, theclaim-mapping coverage is determined by dividing the number ofnon-trivial words in the claim text that match the search phrases of oneor more scope concepts by the total number of non-trivial words in theclaim text. In other embodiments, claim-mapping coverage is computedbased on non-trivial phrases in the claim, wherein mapping coverage isdetermined by dividing the number of non-trivial phrases in the claimtext that match the search phrases of one or more scope concepts by thetotal number of non-trivial phrases in the claim text. In still otherembodiments, claim-mapping coverage is computed based on characters innon-trivial words in the claim, wherein mapping coverage is determinedby dividing the number characters in non-trivial words in the claim textthat match the search phrases of one or more scope concepts by the totalnumber of characters in non-trivial words in the claim text.

In some embodiments, the system determines claim-mapping coverage on aper scope concept basis. That is, the system determines theclaim-mapping coverage of each scope concept in each claim. Theclaim-mapping coverage of a claim is determined by combining theclaim-mapping coverage of all of the scope concepts to which the claimmaps. Any given claim can map to one or a plurality of scope concepts.Determining claim-mapping coverage on per claim basis provides the userwith a more detailed perspective of claims and the scope concepts towhich they map.

In some embodiments, the process 600 further includes generating acoverage map 612, wherein the coverage map is a visual display of theclaim-mapping coverage. In some embodiments, the coverage map isdisplayed as a plurality of pie chart and claim text pairs, with one piechart associated with the text of each claim in a patent, wherein eachslice in the pie chart represents the mapping coverage of a single scopeconcept in the associated claim. (This embodiment is shown in FIG. 7which is described in more detail below.) In other embodiments, thecoverage map is displayed with other visual indications including may beother visual indication such as graying out a plurality (e.g., in someembodiments, all) of the words in the claim text mapped to any scopeconcept, along with all trivial text. In some embodiments, the coveragemap is displayed to the user on a computer monitor (e.g., a LCD displayor a projector).

FIG. 7 is a depiction of a visual display of a coverage map 700 producedin one embodiment of the present disclosure. The claim-mapping coveragedata presented in the coverage map 700 is generated as described abovein process 600, shown FIG. 6. In some embodiments, claim-mappingcoverage is displayed for each claim (e.g., in some embodiments, as anumerical “score” of the coverage, and/or in other embodiments, as acolor score (e.g., red-yellow-green for various proportions ofcoverage)). The coverage map for a first claim 710 includes the claimtext 712, and, in some embodiments, a pie chart 714 depicting theclaim-mapping coverage for that claim. In the example shown in FIG. 7,the first mapped claim is claim 21. All of the text of the claim isdisplayed. For claim 21, a first scope concept in the claim isrepresented by “AAA”, a second scope concept is represented by “BBB” anda third scope concept is represented by “CCC”. The non-trivial claimtext that has been mapped to a scope concept is indicated to the user.In one embodiment, shown in the example in FIG. 7, phrases in the claimtext are displayed on individual lines, and those phrases that map tosome scope concept are flagged is a visual key 715. The set of visualkeys serves as the legend for interpreting the pie chart. In thisexample, various different line patterns (e.g., diagonal parallel lines,horizontal parallel lines, cross-hatching), commonly referred to as fillpatterns, are used to differentiate the keys and associated pie slices.In some embodiments, other fill patterns are used. In other embodiments,the text is displayed in colors that correspond to colors used in thepie chart. Each slice of the pie chart 714 represents a single scopeconcept, wherein the size of a pie slice corresponds to the portion ofthe non-trivial claim text that maps to the scope concept represented bythat particular pie slice. In the mapping example 710, all non-trivialclaim text has been mapped to a scope concept, indicated by the circleforming the pie chart being completely filled. The example of FIG. 7includes the claim-mapping coverage 720 is for claim 1. In this case,come non-trivial claim text, represented by “DDD”, is not mapped to ascope concept, and the associated pie chart shows only about 80% claimmapping coverage. The coverage maps for claim 12 (730) and claim 17(740) show decreasing amount of claim-mapping coverage.

FIGS. 8A, 8B and 8C are examples of a user interface displays 801, 802,and 803 for some embodiments of the present disclosure. The datapresented to the user with this user interface are generated with any ofthe processes: process 100 shown in FIG. 1, process 200 shown in FIG. 2,process 300 shown in FIG. 3, process 403 shown in FIG. 4C, process 500shown in FIG. 5 or process 600 shown in FIG. 6, all of which aredescribed above. FIG. 8A shows the visual display 801 of the independentclaims extracted from the text of the patent(s) loaded into the system.In some embodiments, this visual display is presented to the user on acomputer monitor (e.g., a LCD display or a projector). As describedabove, in some embodiments of the present disclosure, the systemidentifies scope concept phrases, searches the claim text for the scopeconcept phrases and identifies the locations of the scope conceptphrases in the text, 810 in the display screen 802 of FIG. 8B. In otherembodiments, the system also performs claim-mapping coverage analysisand generates a visual indication of the claim-mapping coverage results,e.g., pie charts 820 in FIG. 8B. The scope concept phrase locations andclaim-mapping coverage results are visually presented to the user alongwith the independent claim text, in the display screen 803 of FIG. 8C.In some embodiments, the scope concept phrase locations are displayed onthe computer monitor by highlighting the claim text (e.g., displayingtext in a different color, in a different font, or with some othervisual indication). In some embodiments, the claim-mapping coverage foreach claim is displayed as a pie chart near the claim text on thecomputer monitor. In some embodiments, claim-mapping coverage is adisplayed as a stacked bar chart or other visual indication. In otherembodiments, the claim-mapping coverage is displayed as a number.

FIGS. 9A, 9B and 9C are an example of a user interface display in oneembodiment of the present disclosure. The three figures togetherrepresent a single display (e.g., a single computer monitor), whereinFIG. 9A is a top portion 901A of a user interface display, FIG. 9B is amiddle portion 901B of a user interface, and FIG. 9C is a bottom portion901 C of a user interface display. The data presented to the user withthis user interface are generated with any of the processes: process 100shown in FIG. 1, process 200 shown in FIG. 2, process 300 shown in FIG.3, process 403 shown in FIG. 4C, process 500 shown in FIG. 5 or process600 shown in FIG. 6, all of which are described above. The text of thefirst set of claims (in this example, independent claims) is presentedin a first area along the right side of the display. Scope concepts arepresented in a second area of the display. In some embodiments, AGPSCsare presented in a third area of the display, labeled “STRING” in thisexample. In other embodiments, key phrases and/or equivalent phrases arealso displayed in the third area of the display. In some embodiments,scope concepts are highlighted in the claim text, as is shown in thisexample in FIG. 9. In some embodiments, other information about thepatent or patents may be presented including a count of the number oftimes a particular scope concept appears in the claims, and, in someembodiments, a list of the claim numbers in which the scope concept isfound. In some embodiments, a variety of control buttons are presentedon the display which allow the user to control what phrases arehighlighted in the claim text, to edit the scope concepts or key phrasesand to map a specific scope concepts. Detailed description of the buttonoperation and highlighting is in FIGS. 11A and 11B described below.

The analysis of any given patent described herein (e.g., any exampleshown in FIGS. 9A, 9B, 9C, 10, 12, 14, or 15) is merely an example oftext extraction and presentation used in some embodiments of the presentdisclosure, and is not meant to represent or limit the legal claim scopeof any patent, nor is it intended for any use except as an example of anautomated process that can be used to assist in an analysis by acompetent professional patent attorney who is experienced in suchmatters.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 1000 of claimidentification in one embodiment of the present disclosure. Process 1000includes loading the text for a patent 1010. In some embodiments, thiswill be an issued patent that is specified by a patent number, titletext, inventor(s) or the like, while in other embodiments, this will bea pending patent application similarly specified. In some embodiments,more than one issued patent or pending patent application is specifiedand the text for a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) of thepatents or applications are loaded. In some embodiments, process 1000further includes identifying and extracting 1012 claim text 1014,wherein the system semantically analyzes the text of the patent,identifies, and extracts the text of the claims from the text of theentire patent (or patents). In some embodiments, process 1000 furtherincludes identifying and extracting 1016 a first set of claims 1018,(e.g., all of the independent claims of the patent) wherein the systemsemantically analyzes the text of the extracted claim text, identifies,and extracts the text of the set of claims from the entire claim text.In some embodiments, the subprocesses of identifying and extracting 1012claim text, and identifying and extracting 1016 a first set of claimsare combined into a single subprocess.

FIG. 11A is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 1100 of scopeconcept identification in one embodiment of the present disclosure.Process 1100 includes identifying 1120 automatically generatedpreliminary scope concepts (AGPSCs), wherein indentifying automaticallygenerated preliminary scope concepts includes semantically analyzing thefirst set of claims 1018 to identify phrases (word sequences or sentencefragments) that are likely components of a claim limitation, andgenerating a list of these phrases 1122. In some embodiments, process1100 further includes presenting the list of AGPSCs to the user on acomputer monitor 1130 in a first area of the display 1134. In someembodiments, process 1100 includes presenting the first set of claims tothe user on a computer monitor 1130 in a second area of the display1136. In some embodiments, process 1100 includes eliciting input fromthe user by displaying on the computer monitor sets of functionalbuttons 1132, wherein each set of buttons correlates to an AGPSC, andwherein the system receives input from the user when the user activatesa button (e.g., clicking on a button with a mouse, touching a button ona touch screen, selecting the button via a keyboard, or activating abutton by other means). The buttons allow the user to specify a varietyof operations with the AGPSCs. In one embodiment shown in FIG. 11A,activating the “FIND” button causes the system to search the claim text1124 for the AGPSC associated with the button and to highlight the AGPSCin the claim text 1136 on the computer monitor 1130. Activating the“MAP” button causes the system to accept the associated AGPSC as a scopeconcept and to highlight the scope concept in the claim text 1136 on thecomputer monitor 1130. In some embodiments, activating the “MAP” buttonfurther causes the system to elicit and receive input from the userspecifying changes to be made to the associated scope concept (e.g.,editing the text or title of the scope concept). In some embodiments,the text for each scope concept or AGPSC highlighted in the claims 1136is highlighted differently. For example, in one embodiment, text of thefirst scope concept is displayed with a first color of text, while textof the second scope concept is displayed with a second color of text,and so on. In other embodiments, other text highlighting techniques areused. In one embodiment of the present disclosure in FIG. 11A,activating the “SPLIT” button causes the system to elicit and receiveinput from the user specifying the associated AGPSC is to be dividedinto one or more scope concepts.

FIG. 11B is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 1150 of scopeconcept identification in one embodiment of the present disclosure. Insome embodiments, except as follows, process 1150 is similar to process1100 described above, and includes one or more subprocesses describedabove for FIG. 11A but not described here for clarity of thisdiscussion. Process 1150 includes identifying 1140 automaticallygenerated preliminary scope concepts (AGPSCs), wherein indentifyingautomatically generated preliminary scope concepts includes semanticallyanalyzing the first set of claims 1018 to identify initial phrases (wordsequences or sentence fragments) that are likely components of a claimlimitation, and generating a list of these phrases 1142. Process 1150further includes identifying 1140 equivalent phrases to the AGPSCs, andgenerating a list of these phrases 1142, wherein the equivalent phrasesinclude different words but that have substantially the same meanings asphrases in the initial list. In some embodiments, process 1150 furtherincludes presenting the list of AGPSCs and equivalent phrases to theuser on a computer monitor 1130 in a first area of the display 1146. Insome embodiments, activating the “MAP” button further causes the systemto elicit and receive input from the user specifying which equivalentphrases are to be ignored, and specifying changes to be made to thescope concept or equivalent phrases (e.g., editing the text, or editingthe title of the scope concept). In some embodiments, the text of thescope concepts and equivalent phrase are highlighted in displayed claimtext 1136.

FIG. 11C is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 1150 of scopeconcept identification in one embodiment of the present disclosure. Insome embodiments, except as follows, process 1150 includes one or moresubprocesses described above for FIG. 11B but not repeated here forclarity of this discussion. Process 1150 further includes identifying1140 equivalent phrases to the AGPSCs, and generating a list of thesephrases 1142, wherein the equivalent phrases include different words butthat have substantially the same meanings as phrases in the initiallist. In some embodiments, a word stemmer 1161 is used to identifyequivalent words and phrases, where a word stemmer identifies the baseor root of a word. An example of a simple stemming algorithm is theremoval of suffixes or “suffix stripping.” Words are considered the sameit their roots are the same, independent of any suffix used (e.g.,“evaluates” is considered by the software process to be the same as“evaluated”). In some embodiments, one or a plurality of more-complexstemming algorithms are used. In some embodiments, one or a plurality ofthesauri 1162 are used to identify equivalent words and phrases. Thethesauri can include standard language thesauri as well as specializedthesauri for technical terminology or other jargon. In some embodiments,process 1150 further includes presenting the list of AGPSCs andequivalent phrases to the user on a computer monitor 1130 in a firstarea of the display 1146. In some embodiments, activating the “MAP”button further causes the system to elicit and receive input 1160 fromthe user specifying which equivalent phrases are to be ignored. In someembodiments, activating the “SPLIT” button further causes the system toseparate a single AGPSC into two smaller AGPSCs. In some embodiments,activating the “JOIN” button further causes the system to combine two ormore individual AGPSCs into a single AGPSC. In some embodiments,activating the “EDIT” button further causes the system elicit andreceive input from the user specifying changes to be made to the scopeconcept or equivalent phrases (e.g., editing the text, or editing thetitle of the scope concept). In some embodiments, activating the“EQUATE” button further causes the system to treat two or more differentAGPSCs having different wordings as a single scope concept. In someembodiments, the text of the scope concepts and equivalent phrase arehighlighted in displayed claim text 1136.

FIG. 12 is an example of a final claim map that is generated with any ofthe processes: process 100 shown in FIG. 1, process 200 shown in FIG. 2,process 300 shown in FIG. 3, process 401 shown in FIG. 4A, process 402shown in FIG. 4B, process 403 shown in FIG. 4C, or process 500 shown inFIG. 5, all of which are described above. Scope concepts are listed inthe first column of the claim map. Patent information is presented inmultiple columns, with one column for each claim. In some embodiments,as shown in this example, only independent claims are included. Theexample claim map in FIG. 12 includes a first patent with 8 independentclaims, and a second patent with 3 independent claims. In someembodiments, 3 or more patents are included. The cell at theintersection of a scope concept row and a claim column is highlighted ifthe claim identified in a particular column maps to the scope conceptidentified in that row. In this example, the first scope concept listedis “LED HOUSING”. The claim map shows that claims 1, 12, 21, 31 and 34of the first patent map to this scope concept, and claims 1, and of thesecond patent map to this scope concept. Similarly, in this example,claims 12, 26 and 30 of the first patent and no claims of the secondpatent map to the scope concept “BATTERY POWER”. In some embodiments,the claim map further includes a maintenance fee schedule whichidentifies future maintenance fee payments due for each patent, andincludes for each payment a due date, an amount, and a receiving body(e.g., USA, PCT, or other specific country). In this example,maintenance fees due are shown in the bottom two rows of the claim map.In some embodiments, 3 or more maintenance fees are presented.

FIG. 13 is a diagram of a data structure 1300 used by the computersystem in some embodiments of the present disclosure. The data structure1300 includes in some embodiments a substructure 1310 which contains thetext of the claims of a patent or patent application. In someembodiments, the text of a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) ofthe claims in the patent is included. In other embodiments, only thetext of a first set of claims (e.g., independent claims) is included. Insome embodiments, the data structure further includes a claim mapsubstructure 1320 which includes a list of scope concepts 1322. In someembodiments, the list of scope concepts includes final scope concepts.In other embodiments, the list of scope concepts includes AGPSC, keyphrases, and/or equivalent phrases. In some embodiments, the claim mapsubstructure 1320 further includes a list of position mappings betweenthe scope concepts list 1322 and the claim text 1310. For each item(e.g., scope concept, key phrase, AGPSC or equivalent phrase) in thescope concept list 1322, the position mapping list includes references(e.g., storage address, offset, or other such identifying means) intothe claim text structure 1310 for each occurrence of the item in thetext, wherein the reference identifies the position of the item in theclaim text, and wherein the reference, in some embodiments, furtherincludes a length of the item. In some embodiments, the claim mapsubstructure further includes a list of display flags 1326, whereinthere is one display flag for each item in the scope concept list, andwherein the display flag indicates to the system if the text associatedwith the scope concept list item is to be highlighted on the user'scomputer monitor. In some embodiments, data structure 1300 furtherincludes a maintenance-fee-schedule substructure 1330, which identifiesfuture maintenance fee payments due for the patent, and for each paymentincludes a due date, an amount, and a receiving body (where the paymentis to be made, e.g., US, PCT, or other specific country).

FIG. 14 is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 1400 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure. In some embodiments, except asfollows, process 1400 is similar to processes 100, 200, 300, 401, 402,403, and 500 described above, and includes one or more subprocessesdescribed above for FIGS. 1-5, but not shown here for clarity of thisdiscussion. In some embodiments, process includes eliciting andreceiving indicia from a user that specifies a patent (in someembodiments, this will be an issued patent that is specified by a patentnumber, title text, inventor(s) or the like, while in other embodiments,this will be a pending patent application similarly specified),obtaining some or all text of the specified patent document (e.g., viadownloading the text of the patent from a patent office website or thelike), and loading claim text extracted from the text of the patentdocument (e.g., identifying the claim text of the patent using tags inthe text, or the like). In some embodiments, 2 or more patents arespecified.

FIG. 15 is a flow chart of a computer-implemented process 1500 of oneembodiment of the present disclosure. In some embodiments, except asfollows, process 1400 is similar to processes 100, 200, 300, 401, 402,403, and 500 described above, and includes one or more subprocessesdescribed above for FIGS. 1-5, but not shown here for clarity of thisdiscussion. In some embodiments, process 1500 includes loading claimtext shown in process 1400 and further includes semantically analyzingthe claim text to identify and extract the independent claims from fullclaim text.

Finding Phrases Common to a Plurality of Claims

In some embodiments of each of the processes set forth herein, thepresent disclosure finds phrases that are the same in each of aplurality of claims by doing a word-by-word claim comparison betweensets of claims (for example, between a plurality (e.g., in someembodiments, all) of the possible pairs, or between three or more claimsas a set) (in much the same way as word-processing programs, such asMicrosoft's WORD®, use when performing document comparison operations oftwo documents) to identify strings of words that occur in a plurality(e.g., in some embodiments, all) of the claims of each set of claims.

In other embodiments of each of the processes set forth herein, thepresent method and apparatus use concepts, such as automaticallyidentifying key topics and phrases in a document's text, as described inU.S. Pat. No. 5,963,205 to Sotomayor issued Oct. 5, 1999 titled“Automatic index creation for a word processor”, which is incorporatedherein by reference. Those claims that contain each of the key phrasesare then identified in order to find phrases that occur in two or moreclaims.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure provides acomputer-implemented method that includes obtaining, into a computer,text of a first patent; automatically finding and extracting, using thecomputer, claim text from the text of the first patent; identifying,using the computer, text of a first plurality of claims from the set ofclaim text of the first patent; displaying in a first area on a computermonitor the text of the first plurality of claims; automaticallygenerating, from the first plurality of claims, text of a plurality ofpreliminary scope-concept phrases derived from the first plurality ofclaims, wherein the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrasesincludes a first preliminary scope-concept phrase and a secondpreliminary scope-concept phrase; displaying in a second area on thecomputer monitor the text of at least the first and second preliminaryscope-concept phrases from the first plurality of claims; eliciting andreceiving user input to select a first specified one of the displayedpreliminary scope-concepts phrases; and highlighting each occurrence ofthe first specified one of the displayed preliminary scope-conceptphrases in a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) of the of thefirst plurality of claims displayed in the first row that contain thefirst specified one of the plurality of preliminary scope-conceptphrases.

In some embodiments of the method, the first area and the second areaare each vertical rows, and the method further includes eliciting andreceiving user input to modify the first one of the displayed pluralityof preliminary scope-concepts phrases to generate text of a modifiedfirst scope-concept; and highlighting each occurrence of the text of themodified first scope-concept in a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments,all) of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area.

In some embodiments of the method, the first area and the second areaare each vertical rows, and the method further includes eliciting andreceiving user input to shorten the first one of the displayed pluralityof preliminary scope-concepts phrases to generate text of a shortenedfirst scope-concept; and highlighting each occurrence of the text of theshortened first scope-concept in a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments,all) of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area.

In some embodiments of the method, the first area and the second areaare each vertical rows, and the method further includes eliciting andreceiving user input to specify a first equivalent scope concept,wherein the first equivalent scope concept is associated with a firstset of scope concepts having text of more than one of the plurality ofpreliminary scope-concepts phrases; and highlighting each occurrence ofthe text of the first set of scope concepts in a plurality (e.g., insome embodiments, all) of the first plurality of claims displayed in thefirst area.

In some embodiments of the method, the first area and the second areaare each vertical rows, and the method further includes eliciting andreceiving user input to specify at least two of the plurality ofpreliminary scope-concepts phrases as being equivalent scope-conceptphrases; and highlighting each occurrence of each of the equivalentscope-concept phrases in a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) ofthe first plurality of claims displayed in the first area.

In some embodiments of the method, the generating of the plurality ofpreliminary scope-concept phrases further includes automaticallygenerating, using the computer, a plurality of sets of equivalent searchphrases including a first set and a second set, wherein equivalentsearch phrases in the first set each have different wordings butmeanings that are substantially equivalent to the first preliminaryscope-concept phrase, wherein equivalent search phrases in the secondset each have different wordings but meanings that are substantiallyequivalent to the second preliminary scope-concept phrase; andhighlighting, in the first plurality of claims displayed in the firstrow, each occurrence of the equivalent search phrases in the first setand the second set of equivalent search phrases.

In some embodiments of the method, the automatically generating of theplurality of sets of search phrases further includes eliciting andreceiving user input to distinguish which of the automatically generatedequivalent search phrases are to be highlighted when highlighting claimsequivalent search phrases in the first plurality of claims displayed inthe first row versus those that are to be ignored when highlightingequivalent search phrases in the first plurality of claims displayed inthe first row.

Some embodiments of the method further include identifying themaintenance fee schedule for the first patent, wherein the maintenancefee schedule includes at least the next maintenance fee payment due forthe first patent; and displaying on the computer monitor the maintenancefee schedule.

In some embodiments of the method, the automatically generating of thefirst preliminary scope-concept phrase includes selecting a firstcontiguous string of words that exists in each of a plurality of thefirst plurality of claims of the first patent, and wherein theautomatically generating the second preliminary scope-concept phraseincludes selecting a second contiguous string of words that exists ineach of a plurality of the first plurality of claims of the firstpatent.

In some embodiments of the method, the computer-implemented methodfurther includes automatically determining a first subset of the text ofthe first plurality of claims that is to be considered trivial text anda second remaining subset that is to be considered non-trivial text;eliciting and receiving user input to specify at least two of theplurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases as being mappedscope-concept phrases; evaluating how much of the non-trivial text hasbeen covered by each one of the mapped scope-concept phrases; anddisplaying a graphical representation of how much of the non-trivialtext has been covered by each one of the mapped scope-concept phrases.

Some embodiments of the method further include generating a datastructure having a scope-concept map from the specified mappedscope-concept phrases; and displaying the scope concept map on thecomputer monitor.

Some embodiments of the method further include eliciting and receivinguser input to specify a second one of the displayed plurality ofpreliminary scope-concepts phrases; and highlighting each occurrence ofthe specified second one of the plurality of preliminary scope-conceptphrases in each of the first plurality of claims displayed in the firstarea that contains the specified second one of the plurality ofpreliminary scope-concept phrases, wherein a visual appearance of thehighlighting of the second one of the plurality of preliminaryscope-concept phrases is different than a visual appearance of thehighlighting of the first one of the plurality of preliminaryscope-concept phrases.

In some embodiments of the method, the generating of the plurality ofpreliminary scope-concept phrases further includes: processingword-by-word through a first selected claim, and for a first selectedword in the first claim identifying a plurality of other claims havingthat first selected word (thus identifying a first one-word preliminaryscope-concept phrase), for a second selected word in the first claimidentifying a plurality of other claims having that second selectedword, thus identifying a second one-word preliminary scope-conceptphrase, and repeating this process for a plurality of words in the firstselected claim; processing word-by-word through the first selectedclaim, and for a first selected two-word sequence of words consisting ofthe first selected word and the second selected word of the firstselected claim, identifying a plurality of other claims having thatfirst selected two-word sequence (thus identifying a first two-wordpreliminary scope-concept phrase), for a second two-word sequence ofwords consisting of the second selected word and a third selected wordof the first claim, identifying a plurality of other claims having thatsecond two-word sequence, thus identifying a second two-word preliminaryscope-concept phrase, and repeating this process for a plurality oftwo-word sequences of words in the first selected claim; processingword-by-word through the first selected claim for selected three-wordsequences of words. In some embodiments, this process is repeated for upto N-word sequences of words, until no other claims contain any of theN-word sequences from the first claim. In some embodiments, this processis repeated starting with a second claim, for one-word, two-word,through N-word sequences, identifying one-word preliminary scope-conceptphrases, two-word preliminary scope-concept phrases, through N-wordpreliminary scope-concept phrases, and further repeated for a thirdclaim, a fourth claim and a plurality of other claims in the patent.

Some embodiments further include eliciting and receiving user input thatspecifies at least two of the plurality of preliminary scope-conceptsphrases as being mapped scope-concept phrases; eliciting and receivinguser input that specifies one or more modifications to the text of themapped scope-concept phrases; eliciting and receiving user input thatincludes a hypothetical set of one or more claims for a target productor technology, wherein the hypothetical set of claims is generated basedon a human-user examination of the product or technology, and human-userawareness of mapped scope-concept phrases; identifying a plurality ofthe mapped scope-concept phrases that are in the hypothetical claims;and displaying to the user the mapped scope-concept phrases that are inthe hypothetical claims.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure provides an apparatus thatincludes a computer; a storage unit operatively coupled to the computer,wherein the storage unit has text of a first patent; alocation-and-extraction unit in the computer that finds and extractsclaim text from the text of the first patent, and places the extractedset of claim text of the first patent into the storage unit; afirst-claim-identifier unit in the computer that identifies text a firstplurality of claims from the claim text of the first patent; anautomatic preliminary scope-concept-phrase locator in the computer thatlocates, from the first plurality of claims, a plurality of preliminaryscope-concept phrases including a first preliminary scope-concept phraseand a second preliminary scope-concept phrase; a user input deviceoperatively coupled to the computer and to elicit and receive aspecification of a first one of the plurality of preliminaryscope-concepts phrases; and a display unit operatively coupled to thecomputer and to display in a first area on a computer monitor the textof the first plurality of claims, and to display in a second area on thecomputer monitor the text of the plurality of preliminary scope-conceptphrases from the first plurality of claims, and to highlight eachoccurrence of the specified first one of the plurality of preliminaryscope-concept phrases in a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) ofthe of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area.

In some embodiments of the apparatus, the first area and the second areaare each vertical rows; the user input device is also to elicit andreceive user input to modify the first one of the displayed plurality ofpreliminary scope-concepts phrases to generate text of a modified firstscope-concept; and the display unit is also to highlight each occurrenceof the text of the modified first scope-concept in a plurality (e.g., insome embodiments, all) of the first plurality of claims displayed in thefirst area.

In some embodiments of the apparatus, the automatic preliminaryscope-concept-phrase locator is further to automatically generate aplurality of sets of equivalent search phrases including a first set anda second set, wherein equivalent search phrases in the first set eachhave different wordings but meanings that are substantially equivalentto the first preliminary scope-concept phrase, wherein equivalent searchphrases in the second set each have different wordings but meanings thatare substantially equivalent to the second preliminary scope-conceptphrase; and the display unit is also to highlight, in the firstplurality of claims displayed in the first row, each occurrence of theequivalent search phrases in the first set and the second set ofequivalent search phrases.

In some embodiments of the apparatus, the user input device is also toelicit and receive user input to distinguish which of the automaticallygenerated equivalent search phrases are to be highlighted whenhighlighting claims equivalent search phrases in the first plurality ofclaims displayed in the first row versus those that are to be ignoredwhen highlighting equivalent search phrases in the first plurality ofclaims displayed in the first row.

In some embodiments of the apparatus, the apparatus further includes amaintenance fee schedule identifier that identifies the maintenance feeschedule for the first patent, wherein the maintenance fee scheduleincludes at least the next maintenance fee payment due for the firstpatent; and the display unit is also to display the maintenance feeschedule.

In some embodiments of the apparatus, the user-input device furtherelicits and receives user input to specify at least two of the pluralityof preliminary scope-concepts phrases as being mapped scope-conceptphrases, and the apparatus further includes non-triviality unit thatautomatically determines a first subset of the text of the firstplurality of claims that is to be considered trivial text and a secondremaining subset that is to be considered non-trivial text; a map unitthat generates a data structure having a scope-concept map from thespecified mapped scope-concept phrases; and an evaluation unit thatevaluates how much of the non-trivial text has been covered by each oneof the mapped scope-concept phrases, wherein the display unit displays agraphical representation of how much of the non-trivial text has beencovered by each one of the mapped scope-concept phrases, and wherein thedisplay unit displays the scope concept map on the computer monitor.

In some embodiments of the apparatus, the user input device is also toelicit and receive user input to specify a second one of the displayedplurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases; and the display unit isalso to highlight each occurrence of the specified second one of theplurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases in each of the firstplurality of claims displayed in the first area that contains thespecified second one of the plurality of preliminary scope-conceptphrases, wherein a visual appearance of the highlight of the second oneof the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases is different thana visual appearance of the highlight of the first one of the pluralityof preliminary scope-concept phrases.

In some embodiments of the apparatus, the scope-concept-phrase locatorfurther includes: a first word-by-word processor that processes througha first selected claim, and for a first selected word in the firstselected claim identifies a plurality of other claims that have thatfirst selected word, thus identifies a first one-word preliminaryscope-concept phrase, then for a second selected word in the firstselected claim identifies a plurality of other claims that have thatsecond selected word, thus identifies a second one-word preliminaryscope-concept phrase, wherein the first word-by-word processor repeatssuch process for each of a plurality of words in the first selectedclaim; a second word-by-word processor that processes through the firstselected claim, and for a first selected two-word sequence of words thatconsists of the first selected word and the second selected word of thefirst selected claim, identifies a plurality of other claims that havethat first selected two-word sequence, thus identifies a first two-wordpreliminary scope-concept phrase, then for a second two-word sequence ofwords that consists of the second selected word and a third selectedword of the first claim, identifies a plurality of other claims havingthat second two-word sequence, and thus identifies a second two-wordpreliminary scope-concept phrase, wherein the second word-by-wordprocessor repeats such process for a plurality of two-word sequences ofwords in the first selected claim; and a third word-by-word processorthat processes through the first claim for three-word sequences of wordsto generate three-word scope concepts; wherein the scope-concept-phraselocator invokes the first word-by-word processor, the secondword-by-word processor, and the third word-by-word processor for asecond selected claim relative to a plurality of other claims in thepatent. In some embodiments, the word-by-word processors are invoked tofind longer and longer word sequences until the word sequences are notfound in other claims. In some embodiments, the word-by-word processorsare invoked to find a plurality of occurrences of a word sequence in asingle claim.

In some embodiments of the apparatus, the user input device is furtherto elicit and receive user input that specifies at least two of theplurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases to be mappedscope-concept phrases; the user input device is further to elicit andreceive user input that specifies one or more modifications to the textof the mapped scope-concept phrases; the user input device is further toelicit and receive user input that includes a hypothetical set of one ormore claims for a target product or technology, wherein the hypotheticalset of claims is generated based on a human-user examination of theproduct or technology, and human-user awareness of mapped scope-conceptphrases; the automatic preliminary scope-concept-phrase locator is tolocate a plurality of the mapped scope-concept phrases that are in thehypothetical claims; and the display unit is to display the mappedscope-concept phrases that are in the hypothetical claims.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure provides an apparatus thatincludes a computer; a storage unit operatively coupled to the computer;means for obtaining, into a computer, text of a first patent; means forautomatically finding and extracting, using the computer, claim textfrom the text of the first patent; means for identifying, using thecomputer, text of a first plurality of claims from the set of claim textof the first patent; means for displaying in a first area on a computermonitor the text of the first plurality of claims; means forautomatically determining, from the first plurality of claims, text of aplurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases including a firstpreliminary scope-concept phrase and a second preliminary scope-conceptphrase; means for displaying in a second area on the computer monitorthe text of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases from thefirst plurality of claims; means for eliciting and receiving user inputto specify a first one of the displayed plurality of preliminaryscope-concepts phrases; and means for highlighting each occurrence ofthe specified first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-conceptphrases in a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) of the firstplurality of claims displayed in the first row that contain thespecified first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-conceptphrases.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure provides a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that whenexecuted on a suitably programmed computer cause the computer to performa method that includes obtaining, into a computer, text of a firstpatent; automatically finding and extracting, using the computer, claimtext from the text of the first patent; identifying, using the computer,text of a first plurality of claims from the set of claim text of thefirst patent; displaying in a first area on a computer monitor the textof the first plurality of claims; automatically determining, from thefirst plurality of claims, text of a plurality of preliminaryscope-concept phrases including a first preliminary scope-concept phraseand a second preliminary scope-concept phrase; displaying in a secondarea on the computer monitor the text of the plurality of preliminaryscope-concept phrases from the first plurality of claims; eliciting andreceiving user input to specify a first one of the displayed pluralityof preliminary scope-concepts phrases; and highlighting each occurrenceof the specified first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-conceptphrases in a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) of the firstplurality of claims displayed in the first row that contain thespecified first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-conceptphrases.

In some embodiments, the present disclosure provides a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium having a data structure stored thereon, whereinthe data structure includes claim text of a first plurality of claimsfrom a first patent; and a first claim-map data substructure thatspecifies text of a plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrasesincluding a first preliminary scope-concept phrase and a secondpreliminary scope-concept phrase, and that specifies first locations inthe first plurality of claims at which the first preliminaryscope-concept phrase occurs and locations in the first plurality ofclaims at which the second preliminary scope-concept phrase occurs; anda highlighting data substructure that identifies for a computer which ofthe first preliminary scope-concept phrase and the second preliminaryscope-concept phrase to selectively highlight in a display the firstplurality of claims.

In some embodiments, the data structure further includes dataidentifying a first fee amount for the first patent and a first due datefor the first payment amount.

In some embodiments, the data structure further includes claim text of asecond plurality of claims from a second patent; a second claim-map datasubstructure that specifies locations in the second plurality of claimsat which the first preliminary scope-concept phrase occurs and locationsin the second plurality of claims at which the second preliminaryscope-concept phrase occurs, wherein the highlighting data substructurealso identifies for the computer which of the first preliminaryscope-concept phrase and the second preliminary scope-concept phrase toselectively highlight in a display the second plurality of claims; anddata identifying a second fee amount for the second patent and a seconddue date for the first payment amount.

In some embodiments, the non-transitory computer-readable medium furtherincludes instructions stored thereon that when executed on a suitablyprogrammed information processor perform a method that includesobtaining, into a computer, text of a first patent; automaticallyfinding and extracting, using the computer, claim text from the text ofthe first patent; identifying, using the computer, text of a firstplurality of claims from the set of claim text of the first patent;displaying in a first area on a computer monitor the text of the firstplurality of claims; automatically generating, from the first pluralityof claims, text of a plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrasesderived from the first plurality of claims, wherein the plurality ofpreliminary scope-concept phrases includes a first preliminaryscope-concept phrase and a second preliminary scope-concept phrase;displaying in a second area on the computer monitor the text of at leastthe first and second preliminary scope-concept phrases from the firstplurality of claims; eliciting and receiving user input to select afirst specified one of the displayed preliminary scope-concepts phrases;highlighting each occurrence of the first specified one of the displayedpreliminary scope-concept phrases in a plurality (e.g., in someembodiments, all) of the first plurality of claims displayed in thefirst row that contain the first specified one of the plurality ofpreliminary scope-concept phrases; wherein the automatically generatingthe first preliminary scope-concept phrase includes selecting a firstcontiguous string of words that exists in each of a plurality of thefirst plurality of claims of the first patent, and wherein theautomatically generating the second preliminary scope-concept phraseincludes selecting a second contiguous string of words that exists ineach of a plurality of the first plurality of claims of the firstpatent; automatically determining a first subset of the text of thefirst plurality of claims that is to be considered trivial text and asecond remaining subset that is to be considered non-trivial text;eliciting and receiving user input to specify at least two of theplurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases as being mappedscope-concept phrases; evaluating how much of the non-trivial text hasbeen covered by the mapped scope-concept phrases; displaying a graphicalrepresentation of how much of the non-trivial text has been covered byeach one of the mapped scope-concept phrases; generating a datastructure having a scope-concept map from the specified mappedscope-concept phrases; and displaying the scope concept map on thecomputer monitor.

In some embodiments, scope concepts are automatically identified bygoing word-by-word through a first claim, and for a first word in thefirst claim identifying a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) ofthe other claims having that first word (thus identifying a firstone-word scope concept), then for a second word in the first claim,identifying a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) of the otherclaims having that second word (thus identifying a second one-word scopeconcept), and repeating this process for a plurality (e.g., in someembodiments, all) of the words in the first claim. In some embodiments,scope concepts are further automatically identified by goingword-by-word through the first claim, and for a first two-word sequenceof words consisting of the first word and the second word of the firstclaim, identifying a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) of theother claims having that first two-word sequence (thus identifying afirst two-word scope concept), for a second two-word sequence of wordsconsisting of the second and a third word of the first claim,identifying a plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) of the otherclaims having that second two-word sequence (thus identifying a secondtwo-word scope concept), and repeating this process for a plurality(e.g., in some embodiments, all) of the two-word sequences of words inthe first claim. In some embodiments, scope concepts are furtherautomatically identified by going word-by-word through the first claimrepeating the above process for three-word sequences of words, four-wordsequences of words, increasing to N-word sequences of words, where noother claims contain any of the N-word sequences from the first claim.In some embodiments, scope concepts are further automatically identifiedby repeating the above process starting with a second claim, forone-word, two-word, through N-word sequences, identifying one-word scopeconcepts, two-word scope concepts, through N-word scope concepts, andfurther repeating the process for a third claim, a fourth claim and aplurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) of the other claims in thepatent.

As used herein, a “sequence” of words in a claim means a plurality ofwords found in one claim whether or not in a given order, and whether ornot there are other intervening words. For example, the four-wordsequence of words “transistor; source; gate; drain” would match “one ormore transistors each having a metallic source, a drain and a gate”(note that in this case, the word transistor versus transistors), andwould match “source, gate, and drain of the field-effect transistor” butwould not match “FET with source, gate and drain” nor “transistor withsource, input node and drain”. As used herein, a “sequence” of conceptsin a claim means a plurality of words or their equivalents found in oneclaim whether or not in a given order, and whether or not there areother intervening words. For example, the four-word sequence of concepts“transistor; source; gate; drain” would match “transistor having ametallic source, a drain and a gate” and would match “source, gate, anddrain of the field-effect transistor” and would match “FET with source,gate and drain” and would match “transistor with source, input node anddrain”.

In some embodiments, the software system, having automatically selecteda series having a plurality of words from one claim in a patent orpatent application, then scans the rest of that claim and/or the otherclaims of one or more patents or patent applications to identify anddisplay the other claims having those words in a sequential-word-seriesphrase (as used herein, defined as the same words next to one another inthe same order), or a contiguous-word phrase (defined as the same wordsimmediately adjacent one another in any order), or nearby-word phrase(defined as the same words nearly adjacent one another in any order butwith N=one or more other words interspersed (a user-specified value forthe number of other words that may be within a group of words containingthe words specified for the given scope concept)), where the otherclaims are displayed with the identified scope concept phrase beinghighlighted (e.g., by font, bold, size, color, highlighting or otheremphasis or de-emphasis).

In some embodiments, rather than searching for identical words orword-stem phrases, the software system of the present disclosureidentifies similar or equivalent words (e.g., transistor, FET, MOSFET,CMOS and the like may be determined to be equivalent concepts for somepurposes), and searches the set of claims of one or more patents orpatent applications to identify and display the other claims havingthose words in a sequential-concept-series phrase (defined as theequivalent words or concepts next to one another in the same order), ora contiguous-concept phrase (defined as the equivalent words or conceptsadjacent one another in any order), or nearby-concept phrase (defined asthe equivalent words or concepts nearly adjacent one another in anyorder but with N=one or more other words interspersed (a user-specifiedvalue for the number of other words that may be within a group of wordscontaining the equivalent words or concepts specified for the givenscope concept)), where the other claims are displayed with theidentified scope concept phrase being highlighted.

In some embodiments, the text for a claim is displayed for the user, andthe system elicits and receives user input (e.g., in some embodiments,by the user dragging a mouse pointer across a series of two or morewords) to specify a user-identified scope concept. The software systemthen scans the rest of that claim and the other claims of one or morepatents or patent applications to identify and display the other claimshaving those words in a sequential word-series phrase, contiguous-wordphrase, nearby-word phrase, sequential-concept-series phrase,contiguous-concept phrase, or nearby-concept phrase. In someembodiments, the claims are displayed with the identified scope conceptphrase being highlighted.

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, user input is elicitedand received, where the user input includes a hypothetical set of claimsdirected toward a target product or technology and based on examinationof the product or technology, and the automatically generatedscope-concept phrases of a set of claims for a patent or patentapplication. A plurality (e.g., in some embodiments, all) of the scopeconcepts that are in the user-generated set of hypothetical claims areidentified and displayed to the user. In some embodiments, both thehypothetical claims directed to the product or technology, and theclaims of one or more selected patents or patent applications are shown,along with a list of scope concepts found in both. In some suchembodiments, the user can select (e.g., by mouse click or other suitablemeans) one or more scope concepts, and those scope concepts arehighlighted in each of the hypothetical claims, and/or patent or patentapplication claims.

With reference to FIG. 16, in some embodiments, a scope concept builderis provided, which in various example embodiments is automated. Thepurpose of this feature is to help users (mappers) to find common claimscope concepts to map to multiple claims.

In an example embodiment, a user may want to find scope concepts theycan map to more than one claim. In order to do this, the user needs tofigure out which concepts are common between different claims. Forexample, in the example claims 1 and 10 (for now, all in one patent)shown in FIG. 16, a user needs to read these claims to determine, forexample, that both claims have the scope concept (limitation) “sendingthe plurality of links through the limited communication interface”. Inorder to verify that the limitation is present in both claims in the waythe user was intending to read them, the user may, and often will, do akeyword search on the claims to see that all the keywords are present.This is shown by the highlighted keywords in FIG. 17, for example. Thehighlighted keywords are shown in block outlines in this view, but othermethods of highlighting are possible (yellow shading, for example). Itwill be seen that both claims 1 and 10 have these keywords, and they arein the same location. This gives the user assurance that the scopeconcept maps to (i.e., is present in) both claims.

In some embodiments, a “scope concept builder” mapping tool is providedthat will help the mapper with the task of identifying scope conceptsshared by claims. In using such a tool, a user picks for example onepatent to work on by using a Paperclip function, for example. In otherembodiments, a user may pick several patents to work on and may want towork across any claim displayed in an “Omnimap” feature of the mappingsystem. The Omnimap feature allows the display of a selection of claimsin a grouped set to allow simultaneous mapping of one or more claimsacross the grouped set. The grouped set may extend across one or morepatents. In the illustrative example described here, the user startswith just one patent at a time.

In proceeding, a user highlights a phrase in a claim, for example inclaim 1 as shown in FIG. 18 attached. In this example, the selected andhighlighted phase is again “sending the plurality of links through thelimited communication interface”. The scope concept builder toolautomatically generates list of keywords from the phrase, and displaysthe phrase with generated keywords as a “Draft Scope Concept” as shownfor example in FIG. 19. In an example embodiment, the builder tool willalso show the smallest block of text that contains all the keywords inall the claims of the patent. This is shown, for example, in claim 10 inFIG. 20. In an example embodiment, if not all the keywords are found ina claim, then the tool will show the smallest block of text thatcontains all the keywords actually found in the claim. In someembodiments, the tool highlights or contrasts these fewer keywords witha different color than if all the keywords are found.

The Draft Scope Concept can be identified or displayed as follows:“sending the plurality of links through the limited communicationinterface”. The mapping tool shows that these keywords are found in theclaim that the phrase was taken from, and also shows what other claimsthe keywords were found in. The user can then edit to stem keywords, orto change the keywords in any way, for example they might stem “limited”to “limit” or edit “communication” to “communication interface”. Or, auser can add a keyword to the list, or delete a keyword from list.Keywords may be one or multiple words.

In some embodiments, the user hits a “refresh” button and the toolrecalculates the matching keyword columns and blocks of claim textcontaining the keywords. In some embodiments, the user can also edit theDraft Scope Concept and refresh, to see what keywords (or stemmedkeywords) now appear in the list. In some embodiments, the user can thenmap the Draft Scope Concept to claims that contain all the keywords. Insome embodiments, if a user wants to map the Draft Scope Concept to aclaim that does not contain all the keywords, the user will be warnedfor example: “Are you sure? Claim X does not contain all the keywords inthe Draft Scope Concept.”

The example format for mapping the Draft Scope Concept facilitatesmapping as only claims with all matching keywords are highlighted, butoptionally a user can pick other claims and be warned if the user triesto map a claim when not all keywords are found. Selection by a user ofclaims to be mapped to the Draft Scope Concept is shown for example bythe checked boxes 2100 in FIG. 21 attached.

The present disclosure also provides methods of mapping. One suchembodiment is show in FIG. 22. In that Figure, a computer-implementedmethod 2200 comprises: at 2202, obtaining, into a computer, text of afirst patent; at 2204, finding and identifying, using the computer,claim text from the text of the first patent; at 2206, automaticallyidentifying, using the computer, one or more keywords contained in theclaim text of the first patent; and at 2208, displaying on a computermonitor the automatically identified keywords.

The method 2200 may also comprise at 2210, automatically displaying, onthe computer monitor, the identified keywords in a selectable list forincorporation into a draft claim scope concept based on selection of atleast one keyword by a user, the draft claim scope concept to be mappedagainst the first patent, or one or more second patents.

In some embodiments, at 2212, the method 2200 may further compriseautomatically displaying on the computer monitor the identified claimtext, and highlighting in the identified claim text the identifiedkeywords. At 2214, the method may further comprise identifying thesmallest block of text of the first patent containing all the identifiedkeywords.

In some embodiments, the method 2200 may further comprise at 2216identifying the smallest block of text of the first patent containingall the identified keywords selected by the user. Still further, themethod may comprise at 2218 automatically displaying on the computermonitor the identified claim text, and highlighting in the identifiedclaim text the keywords selected by the user.

In some embodiments, the method may further comprise, at 2220highlighting or contrasting any remaining identified keywords notselected by the user for incorporation into the draft claim scopeconcept. The method may further comprise at 2222 allowing a user to editan automatically identified keyword, or a keyword selected by the user.In some embodiments, the method 2200 further comprises at 2224automatically amending the draft claim scope based on editing of akeyword by a user, or selection of one or more keywords by a user. At2226, the method may further comprise mapping the draft claim scope, oran amended version thereof, against the first patent, or one or moresecond patents. In some embodiments, the method further comprises at2228 automatically displaying the automatically identified keywords, orone or more user-selected keywords, or the draft claim scope concept, ina pop-up configuration on the computer monitor.

The scope concept builder tool may in some embodiments thus assist, orat least partially automate, mapping for a user. In an exampleembodiment, the mapping tool is implemented in a “pop-up” configuration,such that keywords, claims or Draft Scope Concepts “pop-up”automatically for consideration and further selection, editing ormapping by a user. In some embodiments, the present disclosure is usedas an aid for a patent practitioner to help in drafting a patentapplication, in order to improve the set of claims to be submitted in apatent application. In some embodiments, the present disclosure is usedas an aid for a patent litigator to help in comparing a patent to aproduct or method, in order to improve the proof of infringement or lackthereof. In some embodiments, the present disclosure is used as an aidfor a commercial company to help in patent clearance of a product ormethod relative to one or more adversely held patents, in order to avoidpatent-infringement liability.

It is to be understood that the above description is intended to beillustrative, and not restrictive. Although numerous characteristics andadvantages of various embodiments as described herein have been setforth in the foregoing description, together with details of thestructure and function of various embodiments, many other embodimentsand changes to details will be apparent to those of skill in the artupon reviewing the above description. The scope of the disclosure shouldbe, therefore, determined with reference to the appended claims, alongwith the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled. Inthe appended claims, the terms “including” and “in which” are used asthe plain-English equivalents of the respective terms “comprising” and“wherein,” respectively. Moreover, the terms “first,” “second,” and“third,” etc., are used merely as labels, and are not intended to imposenumerical requirements on their objects.

1. A computer-implemented method comprising: obtaining, into a computer, text of a first patent; automatically finding and extracting, using the computer, claim text from the text of the first patent; identifying, using the computer, text of a first plurality of claims from the set of claim text of the first patent; displaying in a first area on a computer monitor the text of the first plurality of claims; automatically generating, from the first plurality of claims, text of a plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases derived from the first plurality of claims, wherein the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases includes a first preliminary scope-concept phrase and a second preliminary scope-concept phrase; displaying in a second area on the computer monitor the text of at least the first and second preliminary scope-concept phrases from the first plurality of claims; eliciting and receiving user input to select a first specified one of the displayed preliminary scope-concepts phrases; and highlighting each occurrence of the first specified one of the displayed preliminary scope-concept phrases in a plurality of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area that contain the first specified one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the first area and the second area are each vertical rows, the method further comprising: eliciting and receiving user input to modify the first one of the displayed plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases to generate text of a modified first scope-concept; and highlighting each occurrence of the text of the modified first scope-concept in a plurality of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first area and the second area are each vertical rows, the method further comprising: eliciting and receiving user input to shorten the first one of the displayed plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases to generate text of a shortened first scope-concept; and highlighting each occurrence of the text of the shortened first scope-concept in a plurality of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first area and the second area are each vertical rows, the method further comprising: eliciting and receiving user input to specify a first equivalent scope concept, wherein the first equivalent scope concept is associated with a first set of scope concepts having text of more than one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases; and highlighting each occurrence of the text of the first set of scope concepts in a plurality of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first area and the second area are each vertical rows, the method further comprising: eliciting and receiving user input to specify at least two of the plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases as being equivalent scope-concept phrases; and highlighting each occurrence of each of the equivalent scope-concept phrases in a plurality of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases further includes: automatically generating, using the computer, a plurality of sets of equivalent search phrases including a first set and a second set, wherein equivalent search phrases in the first set each have different wordings but meanings that are substantially equivalent to the first preliminary scope-concept phrase, wherein equivalent search phrases in the second set each have different wordings but meanings that are substantially equivalent to the second preliminary scope-concept phrase; and highlighting, in the first plurality of claims displayed in the first row, each occurrence of the equivalent search phrases in the first set and the second set of equivalent search phrases.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the automatically generating of the plurality of sets of search phrases further includes: eliciting and receiving user input to distinguish which of the automatically generated equivalent search phrases are to be highlighted when highlighting claims equivalent search phrases in the first plurality of claims displayed in the first row versus those that are to be ignored when highlighting equivalent search phrases in the first plurality of claims displayed in the first row.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer implemented method further includes: identifying the maintenance fee schedule for the first patent, wherein the maintenance fee schedule includes at least the next maintenance fee payment due for the first patent; and displaying on the computer monitor the maintenance fee schedule.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the automatically generating the first preliminary scope-concept phrase includes selecting a first contiguous string of words that exists in each of a plurality of the first plurality of claims of the first patent, and wherein the automatically generating the second preliminary scope-concept phrase includes selecting a second contiguous string of words that exists in each of a plurality of the first plurality of claims of the first patent.
 10. The method of claim 9, further comprising: automatically determining a first subset of the text of the first plurality of claims that is to be considered trivial text and a second remaining subset that is to be considered non-trivial text; eliciting and receiving user input to specify at least two of the plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases as being mapped scope-concept phrases; evaluating how much of the non-trivial text has been covered by each one of the mapped scope-concept phrases; and displaying a graphical representation of how much of the non-trivial text has been covered by each one of the mapped scope-concept phrases.
 11. The method of claim 10, further comprising: generating a data structure having a scope-concept map from the specified mapped scope-concept phrases; and displaying the scope concept map on the computer monitor.
 12. The method of claim 1, further comprising: eliciting and receiving user input to specify a second one of the displayed plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases; and highlighting each occurrence of the specified second one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases in each of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area that contains the specified second one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases, wherein a visual appearance of the highlighting of the second one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases is different than a visual appearance of the highlighting of the first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases.
 13. The method of claim 1, wherein the generating of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases further includes: first-processing word-by-word through a first selected claim, and for a first selected word in the first claim identifying a plurality of other claims having that first selected word, thus identifying a first one-word preliminary scope-concept phrase, for a second selected word in the first selected claim identifying a plurality of other claims having that second selected word, thus identifying a second one-word preliminary scope-concept phrase, and repeating this first processing for each of a plurality of words in the first selected claim; second processing word-by-word through the first selected claim, and for a first selected two-word sequence of words consisting of the first selected word and the second selected word of the first selected claim, identifying a plurality of other claims having that first selected two-word sequence, thus identifying a first two-word preliminary scope-concept phrase, for a second two-word sequence of words consisting of the second selected word and a third selected word of the first selected claim, identifying a plurality of other claims having that second selected two-word sequence, thus identifying a second two-word preliminary scope-concept phrase, and repeating this second processing for a plurality of other two-word sequences of words in the first selected claim; third processing word-by-word through the first selected claim for selected three-word sequences of words,; and repeating the above processes, starting with a second selected claim, for one-word, two-word, and three-word preliminary scope-concept phrases.
 14. The method of claim 1, further comprising: eliciting and receiving user input that specifies at least two of the plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases as being mapped scope-concept phrases; eliciting and receiving user input that specifies one or more modifications to the text of the mapped scope-concept phrases; eliciting and receiving user input that includes a hypothetical set of one or more claims for a target product or technology, wherein the hypothetical set of claims is generated based on a human-user examination of the product or technology, and human-user awareness of mapped scope-concept phrases; identifying a plurality of the mapped scope-concept phrases that are in the hypothetical claims; and displaying the mapped scope-concept phrases that are in the hypothetical claims.
 15. An apparatus comprising: a computer; a storage unit operatively coupled to the computer, wherein the storage unit has text of a first patent; a location-and-extraction unit in the computer that finds and extracts claim text from the text of the first patent, and places the extracted set of claim text of the first patent into the storage unit; a first-claim-identifier unit in the computer that identifies text a first plurality of claims from the claim text of the first patent; an automatic preliminary scope-concept-phrase locator in the computer that locates, from the first plurality of claims, a plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases including a first preliminary scope-concept phrase and a second preliminary scope-concept phrase; a user input device operatively coupled to the computer to elicit and receive a specification of a first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases; and a display unit operatively coupled to the computer to display in a first area on a computer monitor the text of the first plurality of claims, and to display in a second area on the computer monitor the text of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases from the first plurality of claims, and to highlight each occurrence of the specified first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases in a plurality of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area.
 16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the first area and the second area are each vertical rows, wherein the user input device is also to elicit and receive user input to modify the first one of the displayed plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases to generate text of a modified first scope-concept; and wherein the display unit is also to highlight each occurrence of the text of the modified first scope-concept in a plurality of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area.
 17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the automatic preliminary scope-concept-phrase locator is further to automatically generate a plurality of sets of equivalent search phrases including a first set and a second set, wherein equivalent search phrases in the first set each have different wordings but meanings that are substantially equivalent to the first preliminary scope-concept phrase, wherein equivalent search phrases in the second set each have different wordings but meanings that are substantially equivalent to the second preliminary scope-concept phrase; and wherein the display unit is also to highlight, in the first plurality of claims displayed in the first row, each occurrence of the equivalent search phrases in the first set and the second set of equivalent search phrases.
 18. The apparatus of claim 17, wherein the user input device is also to elicit and receive user input to distinguish which of the automatically generated equivalent search phrases are to be highlighted when highlighting claims equivalent search phrases in the first plurality of claims displayed in the first row versus those that are to be ignored when highlighting equivalent search phrases in the first plurality of claims displayed in the first row.
 19. The apparatus of claim 15, further comprising: a maintenance fee schedule identifier that identifies the maintenance fee schedule for the first patent, wherein the maintenance fee schedule includes at least the next maintenance fee payment due for the first patent; and wherein the display unit is also to display the maintenance fee schedule.
 20. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the user-input device further elicits and receives user input to specify at least two of the plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases as being mapped scope-concept phrases, the apparatus further comprising: a non-triviality unit that automatically determines a first subset of the text of the first plurality of claims that is to be considered trivial text and a second remaining subset that is to be considered non-trivial text; a map unit that generates a data structure having a scope-concept map from the specified mapped scope-concept phrases; and an evaluation unit that evaluates how much of the non-trivial text has been covered by each one of the mapped scope-concept phrases, wherein the display unit displays a graphical representation of how much of the non-trivial text has been covered by each one of the mapped scope-concept phrases, and wherein the display unit displays the scope concept map on the computer monitor.
 21. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the user input device is also to elicit and receive user input to specify a second one of the displayed plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases; and wherein the display unit is also to highlight each occurrence of the specified second one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases in each of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first area that contains the specified second one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases, wherein a visual appearance of the highlight of the second one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases is different than a visual appearance of the highlight of the first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases.
 22. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the scope-concept-phrase locator further includes: a first word-by-word processor that processes through a first selected claim, and for a first selected word in the first selected claim identifies a plurality of other claims that have that first selected word, thus identifies a first one-word preliminary scope-concept phrase, then for a second selected word in the first selected claim identifies a plurality of other claims that have that second selected word, thus identifies a second one-word preliminary scope-concept phrase, wherein the first word-by-word processor repeats such process for each of a plurality of words in the first selected claim; a second word-by-word processor that processes through the first selected claim, and for a first selected two-word sequence of words that consists of the first selected word and the second selected word of the first selected claim, identifies a plurality of other claims that have that first selected two-word sequence, and thus identifies a first two-word preliminary scope-concept phrase, then for a second two-word sequence of adjacent words that consists of the second selected word and a third selected word of the first claim, identifies a plurality of other claims that have that second two-word sequence, and thus identifies a second two-word preliminary scope-concept phrase, wherein the second word-by-word processor repeats such process for a plurality of two-word sequences of words in the first selected claim; and a third word-by-word processor that processes through the first claim for three-word sequences of words to generate three-word scope concepts; wherein the scope-concept-phrase locator invokes the first word-by-word processor, the second word-by-word processor, and the third word-by-word processor for a second selected claim relative to a plurality of other claims in the patent.
 23. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the user input device is further to elicit and receive user input that specifies at least two of the plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases to be mapped scope-concept phrases; wherein the user input device is further to elicit and receive user input that specifies one or more modifications to the text of the mapped scope-concept phrases; wherein the user input device is further to elicit and receive user input that includes a hypothetical set of one or more claims for a target product or technology, wherein the hypothetical set of claims is generated based on a human-user examination of the product or technology, and human-user awareness of mapped scope-concept phrases; wherein the automatic preliminary scope-concept-phrase locator is to locate a plurality of the mapped scope-concept phrases that are in the hypothetical claims; and wherein the display unit is to display the mapped scope-concept phrases that are in the hypothetical claims.
 24. An apparatus comprising: a computer; a storage unit operatively coupled to the computer; means for obtaining, into a computer, text of a first patent; means for automatically finding and extracting, using the computer, claim text from the text of the first patent; means for identifying, using the computer, text of a first plurality of claims from the set of claim text of the first patent; means for displaying in a first area on a computer monitor the text of the first plurality of claims; means for automatically determining, from the first plurality of claims, text of a plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases including a first preliminary scope-concept phrase and a second preliminary scope-concept phrase; means for displaying in a second area on the computer monitor the text of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases from the first plurality of claims; means for eliciting and receiving user input to specify a first one of the displayed plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases; and means for highlighting each occurrence of the specified first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases in a plurality of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first row that contain the specified first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases.
 25. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that when executed on a suitably programmed computer cause the computer to perform a method comprising: obtaining, into a computer, text of a first patent; automatically finding and extracting, using the computer, claim text from the text of the first patent; identifying, using the computer, text of a first plurality of claims from the set of claim text of the first patent; displaying in a first area on a computer monitor the text of the first plurality of claims; automatically determining, from the first plurality of claims, text of a plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases including a first preliminary scope-concept phrase and a second preliminary scope-concept phrase; displaying in a second area on the computer monitor the text of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases from the first plurality of claims; eliciting and receiving user input to specify a first one of the displayed plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases; and highlighting each occurrence of the specified first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases in a plurality of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first row that contain the specified first one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases.
 26. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having a data structure stored thereon, the data structure comprising: a first claim-map data substructure claim text of a first plurality of claims from at least a first patent; a second claim-map data substructure that specifies text of a plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases including a first preliminary scope-concept phrase and a second preliminary scope-concept phrase that is different than the first preliminary scope-concept phrase, wherein each one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases are found in two or more claims of the claim text in the first claim-map data substructure; and that specifies first locations in the first plurality of claims at which the first preliminary scope-concept phrase occurs and locations in the first plurality of claims at which the second preliminary scope-concept phrase occurs; and a highlighting data substructure that identifies for a computer which of the first preliminary scope-concept phrase and the second preliminary scope-concept phrase to selectively highlight in a display of the first plurality of claims.
 27. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 22, the data structure further comprising: data identifying a first fee amount for the first patent and a first due date for the first payment amount.
 28. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 23, the data structure further comprising: claim text of a second plurality of claims from a second patent; a second claim-map data substructure that specifies locations in the second plurality of claims at which the first preliminary scope-concept phrase occurs and locations in the second plurality of claims at which the second preliminary scope-concept phrase occurs, wherein the highlighting data substructure also identifies for the computer which of the first preliminary scope-concept phrase and the second preliminary scope-concept phrase to selectively highlight in a display the second plurality of claims; and data identifying a second fee amount for the second patent and a second due date for the first payment amount.
 29. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 23, further including instructions stored thereon that when executed on a suitably programmed information processor perform a method comprising: obtaining, into a computer, text of a first patent; automatically finding and extracting, using the computer, claim text from the text of the first patent; identifying, using the computer, text of a first plurality of claims from the set of claim text of the first patent; displaying in a first area on a computer monitor the text of the first plurality of claims; automatically generating, from the first plurality of claims, text of a plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases derived from the first plurality of claims, wherein the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases includes a first preliminary scope-concept phrase and a second preliminary scope-concept phrase; displaying in a second area on the computer monitor the text of at least the first and second preliminary scope-concept phrases from the first plurality of claims; eliciting and receiving user input to select a first specified one of the displayed preliminary scope-concepts phrases; highlighting each occurrence of the first specified one of the displayed preliminary scope-concept phrases in a plurality of the first plurality of claims displayed in the first row that contain the first specified one of the plurality of preliminary scope-concept phrases; wherein the automatically generating the first preliminary scope-concept phrase includes selecting a first contiguous string of words that exists in each of a plurality of the first plurality of claims of the first patent, and wherein the automatically generating the second preliminary scope-concept phrase includes selecting a second contiguous string of words that exists in each of a plurality of the first plurality of claims of the first patent; automatically determining a first subset of the text of the first plurality of claims that is to be considered trivial text and a second remaining subset that is to be considered non-trivial text; eliciting and receiving user input to specify at least two of the plurality of preliminary scope-concepts phrases as being mapped scope-concept phrases; evaluating how much of the non-trivial text has been covered by the mapped scope-concept phrases; displaying a graphical representation of how much of the non-trivial text has been covered by each one of the mapped scope-concept phrases; generating a data structure having a scope-concept map from the specified mapped scope-concept phrases; and displaying the scope concept map on the computer monitor.
 30. A computer-implemented method comprising: obtaining, into a computer, text of a first patent; finding and identifying, using the computer, claim text from the text of the first patent; automatically identifying, using the computer, one or more keywords contained in the claim text of the first patent; and displaying on a computer monitor the automatically identified keywords.
 31. The method of claim 30, further comprising automatically displaying, on the computer monitor, the identified keywords in a selectable list for incorporation into a draft claim scope concept based on selection of at least one keyword by a user, the draft claim scope concept to be mapped against the first patent, or one or more second patents.
 32. The method of claim 30, further comprising automatically displaying on the computer monitor the identified claim text, and highlighting in the identified claim text the identified keywords.
 33. The method of claim 30, further comprising identifying the smallest block of text of the first patent containing all the identified keywords.
 34. The method of claim 31, further comprising identifying the smallest block of text of the first patent containing all the identified keywords selected by the user.
 35. The method of claim 31, further comprising automatically displaying on the computer monitor the identified claim text, and highlighting in the identified claim text the keywords selected by the user.
 36. The method of claim 35, further comprising highlighting or contrasting any remaining identified keywords not selected by the user for incorporation into the draft claim scope concept.
 37. The method of claim 31, further comprising allowing a user to edit an automatically identified keyword, or a keyword selected by the user.
 38. The method of claim 37, further comprising automatically amending the draft claim scope based on editing of a keyword by a user, or selection of one or more keywords by a user.
 39. The method of claim 38, further comprising mapping the draft claim scope, or an amended version thereof, against the first patent, or one or more second patents.
 40. The method of claim 31, further comprising automatically displaying the automatically identified keywords, or one or more user-selected keywords, or the draft claim scope concept, in a pop-up configuration on the computer monitor.
 41. An apparatus comprising: a computer; a storage unit operatively coupled to the computer; and a module comprising one or more processors to: obtain, into the storage unit, text of a first patent; find and identify, using the computer, claim text from the text of the first patent; automatically identify, using the computer, one or more keywords contained in the claim text of the first patent; and display on a computer monitor the automatically identified keywords.
 42. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that when executed on a suitably programmed computer cause the computer to perform a method comprising: obtaining, into the computer, text of a first patent; finding and identifying, using the computer, claim text from the text of the first patent; automatically identifying, using the computer, one or more keywords contained in the claim text of the first patent; and displaying on a computer monitor the automatically identified keywords. 